
Class L 

Book_ 



/ 

THE BIBLE, THE KORAN, AND THE TALMUD ; 



OR, 



52- 



BIBLICAL LEGENDS 



or 



THE MUSSULMANS, 



COMPILED FROM ARABIC SOURCES, AND COMPARED WITH 
JEWISH TRADITIONS. 



P» 



DB. &. TfifEIL, 

LIBRARIAN OF TELE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG, 

FELLOW OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF PARIS, 

&C. &C. &C. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, 
WITH OCCASIONAL NOTES. 



LONDON: 
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 



PATERNOSTER-ROW. 

1846. 






London : 

Printed by A. Spottiswoodk, 

New- Street- Square. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Dk. Weil has stated in his Introduction to these 
Legends, that he chiefly extracted them from original 
Arabic records, which are still received by Moha- 
medans as the inspired biographies of the ancient 
patriarchs and prophets. 

It must still further be added that the leading 
ideas of these Mohamedan legends, i. e. their pro- 
minent historical narratives, and the doctrines and 
precepts which they either state expressly, or imply, 
are contained in the Koran. In some instances it 
gives their minutest particulars. Indeed it would 
seem as if these legends formed part at least of 
what the founder of the Mohamedan faith terms 
" the mother of the book, " indicating that they 
preceded his Koran in order of time, and embodied 
the germ of that faith which he subsequently 
developed. 

a 2 



IV PEEFACE. 

This idea is suggested by the learned German 
compiler, and is corroborated by the fact that the 
legends were unknown to the Arabs before Mohamed 
began to preach, while in the Koran he refers to 
them as already familiar to his hearers. 

But be this as it may, it is certain that the 
fact of their leading ideas being found in the 
Koran, invests them with divine authority to the 
faithful Moslem, for it is a primary article of his 
creed that every thing contained in the Koran is of 
Allah. On first reading these legends it therefore 
occurred to the writer that they might be a valuable 
acquisition, as an epitome of Mohamedan theology and 
morals. And their peculiar character, their constant 
allusion to scriptural facts, with which most Bible 
readers strongly identify themselves, their novel and 
gorgeous and often sublime inventions, investing them 
at once with the fidelity of historical detail, and 
the freshness and fascination of Oriental fiction, seem 
to fit them especially for popular instruction. If it 
be asked what benefit may be derived from promul- 
gating the tenets of a confessedly erroneous system, 
it is replied that a distinction ought to be observed 
between the false systems that have ceased .to be 
believed, and those which are still maintained as 
divine truths by any portion of mankind. 



PREFACE. V 

It may be questioned whether the former ought at 
all to be taught, although there are reasons why even 
the exploded mythology of the ancients should be 
known ; but respecting the second class, to which the 
religion of Mohamed belongs, there should be but 
one opinion. 

Our Redeemer has committed to us in part the 
propagation of his holy faith, by which alone, he 
declares that mankind shall attain to that holiness, 
peace, and glory for which they have been created. 
The exhibition, therefore, in the stewards of the 
Gospel, of a false religion, in which, as in the case 
before us, one hundred and twenty millions of our 
immortal race are at this moment staking their all, 
cannot but be important, at once to awaken within 
us feelings of deep and active charity for these be- 
nighted multitudes, and to furnish us with the requisite 
intelligence for effectually combating their grievous 
errors with the weapons of truth. 

Should the public feel any interest in this work, 
the translator purposes, in a future volume, to discuss 
the legendary principle at some length, and to show 
the analogy of its practical working in the Jewish, 
the Mohamedan, and Roman Catholic systems of 
religion. 



INTRODUCTION, 



Mohamed has been frequently reproached with 
having altered and added most arbitrarily to the re- 
ligious history of the Jews and Christians, — -two im- 
portant considerations not being sufficiently borne in 
mind. In the first place, it is probable, that Mo- 
hamed learned only late in life to write, or even to 
read, the Arabic, and he was unquestionably ignorant 
of every other spoken or written language, as is 
sufficiently apparent from historical testimony: hence 
he was unable to draw from the Old and New Tes- 
taments for himself, and was entirely restricted to 
oral instruction from Jews and Christians. 

Secondly, Mohameil himself declared both the 
Old and New Testament, as possessed by the Jews 
and Christians of his time, to have been falsified ; 
and, consequently, his own divine mission could be 
expected to agree with those writings only in part. 
But the turning-point on which the greater portion 
of the Koran hinges, — the doctrine of the unity of 



Vlll INTEODUCTION. 

God, a doctrine which he embraced with the utmost 
consistency, and armed with which he appeared as a 
prophet before the pagan Arabs, who were addicted 
to the most diversified Polytheism — appeared to him 
much obscured in the Gospels, and he was therefore 
forced to protest against their genuineness. 

But with regard to the writings of the Jews of the 
Old Testament, which he had received from the mouth 
of his Jewish contemporaries, he was induced to be- 
lieve, or, at least, pretended to believe, that they too 
had undergone many changes, inasmuch as Ismael, 
from whom he was sprung, was evidently treated 
therein as a stepchild, or as the son of a discarded 
slave, whereas Abraham's paternal love and solicitude, 
as well as the special favour of the Lord, were the 
exclusive portion of Isaac and his descendants. The 
predictions respecting the Messiah, too, as declared in 
the writings of the Prophets, appeared to him incom- 
patible with the faith in himself as the seal of the Pro- 
phets. Moreover, Mohamed was probably indebted for 
his religious education to a man who, abandoning the 
religion of Arabia, his native country, had sought 
refuge first in Judaism, and then in Christianity, 
though even in the latter he does not seem to have 
found perfect satisfaction. This man, a cousin of his 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

wife Kadidja, urged forward by an irresistible desire 
after the knowledge of truth, but, as his repeated 
apostacies would serve to show, being of a sceptical 
nature, may have discovered the errors that had crept 
into all the religious systems of his time ; and having 
extracted from them that which was purely Divine, 
and freed it from the inventions of men, may have 
propounded it to his disciple, who, deeply affected 
by its repeated inculcation, at length felt within 
himself a call to become the restorer of the old and 
pure religion. A Judaism without the many ritual 
and ceremonial laws, which, according to Mohamed's 
declaration, even Christ had been called to abolish, 
or a Christianity without the Trinity, crucifixion, 
and salvation connected therewith, — this was the 
Creed which, in the early period of his mission, 
Mohamed preached with unfeigned enthusiasm. 

It would be out of place here to exhibit in detail 
the rapidly changing character both of Mohamed and 
his doctrines ; but what has been said appeared indis- 
pensable by way of introduction to the legends in this 
work. With the exception of a few later additions, 
these legends are derived from Mohamed himself. 
Their essential features are found even in the Koran, 
and what is merely alluded to there is carried out and 



X INTRODUCTION. 

completed by oral traditions. Hence these legends 
occupy a twofold place in Arabic literature. The 
whole circle of the traditions, from Adam to Christ, 
containing as they do in the view of Mussulmans real 
and undisputed matters of fact, which are connected 
with the fate of all nations, forms the foundation of 
the universal history of mankind ; while, on the other 
hand, they are especially made use of as the biography 
of the Prophets who lived before Mohamed. It is 
therefore highly important to ascertain the ground 
from which the source of these legends has sprung, 
and to show the transformation which they under- 
went in order to serve as the fulcrum for the propa- 
gation of the faith in Mohamed. 

Respecting the origin of these legends, it will appear 
from what has been said, that, with the exception of 
that of Christ, it is to be found in Jewish traditions, 
where, as will appear by the numerous citations from 
the Midrash, they are yet to be seen. Many traditions 
respecting the prophets of the Old Testament are found 
in the Talmud, which was then already closed, so that 
there can be no doubt that Mohamed heard them from 
Jews, to whom they were known, either by Scripture 
or tradition. For that these legends were the common 
property both of Jews and Arabs cannot be presumed, 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

inasmuch as Mohamed communicated them to the 
Arabs as something new, and specially revealed to 
himself ; and inasmuch as the latter actually accused 
him of having received instruction from foreigners. 
Besides Warraka, who died soon after Mohamed's 
first appearance as a prophet, we know of two other 
individuals, who were well versed in the Jewish 
writings, and with whom he lived on intimate terms ; 
viz. Abd Allah Ibn Salam, a learned Jew, and Sal- 
man the Persian, who had long lived among Jews and 
Christians, and who, before he became a Mussulman, 
was successively a Magian, Jew, and Christian. The 
monk Bahira too, whom however, according to Arabic 
sources, he only met once, on his journey to Bozra, 
was a baptized Jew. All these legends must have 
made a deep impression on a religious disposition 
like that of Mohamed, and have roused within him the 
conviction that at various times, when the depravity 
of the human race required it, God selected some 
pious individuals to restore them once more to the 
path of truth and goodness. And thus it might come 
to pass that, having no other object than to instruct 
his contemporaries in the nature of the Deity, and to 
promote their moral and spiritual improvement, he 
might desire to close the line of the Prophets with 
himself. 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

But these legends the more especially furthered his 
object, inasmuch as in all of them the Prophets are 
more or less misunderstood and persecuted by the 
infidels; but, with the aid of God, are made to 
triumph in the end. They were therefore intended 
by him to serve as a warning to his opponents, and 
to edify and comfort his adherents. But the legend 
of Abraham he must have seized and appropriated 
with peculiar avidity, on account of its special use as a 
weapon both against Jews and Christians, while at the 
same time it imparted a certain lustre to all the nations 
of Arabia descending through Ismael from Abraham. 

It is difficult to find out with precision how much 
of this last legend was known in Arabia before Mo- 
hamed ; but it is probable that as soon as the Arabs 
became acquainted with the Scriptures and traditions 
of the Jews, they employed them in tracing down to 
Mohamed the origin both of their race and of their tem- 
ple. But that they possessed no historical information 
respecting it, will appear from the fact that, notwith- 
standing their genealogical skill, they confess them- 
selves unable to trace Mohamed's ancestry beyond the 
twentieth generation. It is, however, quite evident 
not only that the legends of Abraham and Ismael, 
which related much that was favourable to the latter, 



INTRODUCTION", Xlll 

concerning which the Bible is silent, but that all the 
others in like manner were more or less changed and 
amplified by Mohamed, and adapted to his own pur- 
poses. We are, however, inclined to ascribe these 
modifications to the men by whom he was surrounded, 
rather than to himself; for we consider him, at least 
during the first period of his mission, as the mere tool 
of certain Arabian reformers, rather than an indepen- 
dent prophet, or at all events more as a dupe than a 
deceiver. Yet to him unquestionably belongs the 
highly poetical garb in which we find these legends, 
and which was calculated to attract and captivate the 
imaginative minds of the Arabs much more than the 
dull Persian fables narrated by his opponents. 

In the legend of Christ, it is not difficult to discover 
the views of a baptized Jew. He acknowledges in 
Christ the living Word, and the Spirit of God, in con- 
tradistinction to the dead letter and the empty ceremo- 
nial into which Judaism had then fallen. In the mira- 
culous birth of Christ there is nothing incredible to 
him, for was not Adam, too, created by the word of the 
Lord? He admits all the miracles of the Gospel, f«r 
had not the earlier prophets also worked miracles ? 
Even in the Ascension he finds nothing strange, for 
Enoch and Elias were also translated to heaven. But 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

that a true prophet should place himself and his mother 
on a level with the Most High God is repugnant to his 
views, and he therefore rejects this doctrine as the blas- 
phemous invention of the priests. He refuses also, in 
like manner, to believe the Crucifixion, because it 
appears to him to reflect upon the justice of God,, 
and to conflict with the history of former prophets, 
whom He had delivered out of every danger.* " No 
man shall suffer for the sins of his neighbour," says 
the Koran : hence, though Christ might have fol- 
lowed out his designs without the fear of death, it 
seemed to him impossible that the Lord should have 
permitted Christ, the innocent, to die in so shameful 
a manner for the sins of other men. But he regards 
as a Saviour every prophet who by divine revela- 
tions, and an exemplary and pious life, restores man 
to the way of salvation which Adam had abandoned at 
his fall ; and such a saviour he believed himself to be. 
Now, as the legend of Abraham was valuable to 
Mohamed, on account of the pure and simple lesson 
which it inculcated, as well as for its connection 
with the sacred things of Mecca, so he valued the 



* The reader is reminded of what our Saviour says of 
all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood 
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Bara- 
efeias, who perished between the temple and the altar. — E. T, 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

legend of Christ especially for its promise of the 
Paraclete, which he believed or at least proclaimed 
himself to be, and to which appellation the meaning 
of his own name at least furnished him with a better 
claim than some others who had arrogated it to them- 
selves before him. Here again we perceive that 
Mohamed was probably misinformed both by Jews 
and Christians, though perhaps from no sordid mo- 
tives. Some one, for instance, as Maccavia has 
already observed, may have told him that Christ had 
spoken of a peryclete, — a word which is synonymous 
with Ahmed (the much-praised one). At all events, 
in all the legends of the Mussulmen, Mohamed is 
declared even by the oldest prophets to be the greatest 
of all that were to come (although there are fewer 
traces of this found in the Koran) ; and wherever, in 
the Jewish legends, Moses, Israel, and the Thora are 
prominently brought forward, there the Mussulmans 
place Mohamed, the Arabs, and the Koran. The 
name to which they most frequently appeal as their 
voucher, is Kaab Alahbar, a Jew, who embraced 
Islamism during the caliphate of Omar. As trans- 
lations of the Koran abound in the German lan- 
guage, it cannot be difficult for the reader to sepa- 
rate those portions of these legends composed by 
a 2 



XVI INTRODUCTION, 

Mohamed from those which were afterwards inter- 
polated, but which were ascribed to him, and de- 
scended to posterity as sacred traditions. 

The oral traditions respecting the ancient pro-, 
phets, which are put into Mohamed's mouth, are so 
numerous, and some of them so contradictory, that 
no historian or biographer has been able to admit 
them all. It was therefore necessary to select ; and 
in order to make them in some degree complete, we 
were obliged to draw from various sources, as it was 
only in this way that the unity and roundness could 
be obtained, in which they are here presented to the 
reader. 

Besides the Koran and the commentaries upon it, 
the following MSS. have been made use of for this 
little work ; — 

1. The book Chamis, by Husein Ibn Mohamed, 
Ibn Ahasur Addiarbekri (No. 279. of the Arabian 
MSS. in the library of the Duke of Gotha), which, 
as the introduction to the biography of Mohamed, 
contains many legends respecting the ancient pro- 
phets, especially Adam, Abraham, and Solomon. 

2. The book Dsachirat Alulum wanatidjal Alfu- 
hum (storehouse of wisdom and fruits of knowledge), 
by Ahmed Ibn Zein Alabidin Albekri (No. 285. of 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

the above-mentioned MSS.), in which also the an- 
cient legends from Adam to Christ are prefixed to 
the History of Islam, and more especially the lives 
of Moses and Aaron minutely narrated. 

3. A collection of legends by anonymous authors. 
(No. 909. of the same collection.) 

4. The Legends of the Prophets (Kissat Alan- 
bija), by Muhammed Ibn Ahmed Alkissai. (No. 
764. of the Arabic^ MSS, of the Koyal Library at 
Paris. ) 



CONTENTS, 



Adam (a Mohamedan Legend) - - 2 

Idris or Enoch - - - - 28 

Noah, Hud, and Salih - - - 38 

Abraham - - - - - 47 

Joseph - - - - - - 75 

Moses and Aaron - - - - 91 

Samuel, Saul, and David - *■ - - 144 

Solomon and the Queen of Saba - - - 171 

John, Mary, and Christ - - - - 216 



BIBLICAL LEGENDS, 



FROM THE ARABIC, 
&c. &c. 



ADAM. 

(a mohamedan legend.) 

The most authentic records of antiquity which have 
come down to us state that Adam was created on 
Friday afternoon, at the hour of Assr.* 

The four most exalted angels, Gabriel, Michael, 
Israfil, and Israil, were commanded to bring from 
the four corners of the earth the dust out of 
which Allah formed the body of Adam, all save the 
head and heart. For these He employed ex- 
clusively the sacred earth of Mecca and Medina 
from the very spots on which in later times the 
holy Kaaba and the sepulchre of Mohamed were 
erected. f 

* The hour of Assr is between noon and evening, and is set 
apart by the Mussulman for the performance of his third daily 
prayer. 

f Mohamed, the founder of Islam, was born in 571 a.d. at 
Mecca, where the Kaaba, then an ancient temple, was held in 
great veneration. In 622 the idolaters of Mecca compelled 

B 



2 ADAM CHEATED. 

Even before it was animated, Adam's beautiful 
form excited the admiration of the angels who were 
passing by the gates of Paradise, where Allah had 
laid it down. But Iblis coveted man's noble 
form, and the spiritual and lovely expression of his 
countenance, and said, therefore, to his fellows, " How 
can this hollow piece of earth be well pleasing in 
your sight ? Nothing but weakness and frailty may 
be expected of this creature." When all the in- 
habitants of heaven, save Iblis, had gazed on Adam 
in long and silent wonder, they burst out in praises 
to Allah the Creator of the first man, who was so 
tall that when he stood erect upon the earth his head 
reached to the seventh heaven. 

Allah then directed the angels to bathe the Soul 
of Adam, which he had created a thousand years before 
his body, in the sea of glory which proceedeth from 
himself, and commanded her to animate his yet life- 
less form. The Soul hesitated, for she was unwilling 
to exchange the boundless heavens for this narrow 
home ; but Allah said, " Thou must animate Adam 
even against thy will ; and as the punishment of 
thy disobedience, thou shalt one day be separated 
from him also against thy will." Allah then breathed 
upon her with such violence that she rushed through 
the nostrils of Adam into his head. On reaching his 

him to emigrate to Medina, where he died in June, 632. Vide 
Gustavus Weill. Mohamed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine 
Lehre, 8fc. Stuttgart, 1843, 8vo. 



ADAM ANIMATED WITH LIFE. 6 

eyes they were opened, and he saw the throne of 
Allah with the inscription, " There is but one God, 
and Mohamed is his Messenger." The Soul then 
penetrated to his ears, and he heard the angels praising 
Allah ; thereupon his own tongue was loosed, and he 
cried, " Blessed be thou, my Creator, the only One 
and Eternal ! " and Allah answered, " For this end 
wast thou created : thou and thy descendants shall 
worship me : so shall ye ever obtain grace and mercy." 
The Soul at last pervaded all the limbs of Adam ; and 
when she had reached his feet she gave him the power 
to rise. But on rising he was obliged to shut his 
eyes, for a light shone on him from the throne of 
the Lord which he was unable to endure, and pointing 
with one hand towards it whilst he shaded his eyes 
with the other, he inquired, " O Allah ! what flames 
are those?" — "It is the light of a prophet who shall 
descend from thee and appear on earth in the latter 
times. By my glory, only for his sake have I 
created thee and the whole world.* In heaven 
his name is Ahmed f , but he shall be called Mohamed 
on earth, and he shall restore mankind from vice and 
falsehood to the path of virtue and truth. 

All created things were then assembled before 
Adam, and Allah taught him the names of all beasts, 

* The Midrash Jalkut (Frankfort on the O. 5469), says Rabbi 
Juda, teaches that the world was created on account of the merits 
of Israel. R. Hosia says it was created on account of the Thora 
(the Law) ; and R. Barachia, on account of the merits of Moses. 

f The much-praised One. 

B 2 



4 THE FALL OF SATAN. 

of birds, and of fish, the manner in which they are 
sustained and propagated, and explained their pecu- 
liarities, and the ends of their existence. Finally, the 
angels were convoked, and Allah commanded them 
to bow down to Adam, as the most free and perfect 
of His creatures, and as the only one that was animated 
by His breath. Israfil was the first to obey, whence 
Allah confided to him the book of fate. The other an- 
gels followed his example : Iblis alone was disobedient, 
saying with disdain, " Shall I, who am created of 
fire, worship a being formed of the dust ? " He was 
therefore expelled from Heaven, and the entrance 
into Paradise was forbidden him. 

Adam breathed more freely after the removal of 
Iblis, and by command of Allah, he addressed the 
myriads of angels, who were standing around him, in 
praise of His omnipotence and the wonders of His 
universe : and on this occasion he manifested to the 
angels that he far surpassed them in wisdom, and 
more especially in the knowledge of languages, for he 
knew the name of every created thing in seventy 
different tongues.* 

* When the Lord intended to create man, lie consulted with 
the angels, and said to them, " We will create man after our 
image." But they replied, "What is man, that thou art 
mindful of him ? What are his excellencies ? " He said, " His 
wisdom exceeds your own." He then took all kinds of wild 
beasts and birds, and when he asked the angels to give their 
names, they were not able to do so. After the creation, he 
brought these animals to Adam, who, on being asked their 



EVE. 5 

After this discourse,, Allah presented him, through 
Gabriel, with a bunch of grapes from Paradise, 
and when he had eaten them he fell into a deep 
sleep. The Lord then took a rib from Adam's 
side, and formed a woman of it, whom he called 
Hava [Eve], for he said, I have taken her from 
(hai) the living. She bore a perfect resemblance to 
Adam : but her features were more delicate than his, 
her eyes shone with a sweeter lustre, her hair was 
longer, and divided into seven hundred braids : her 
form was lighter, and her voice more soft and pure. 

While Allah was endowing Eve with every female 
charm, Adam was dreaming of a second human being 
resembling himself. Nor was this strange, for had he 
not seen all the creatures which had been presented to 
him in pairs ? When therefore he awoke, and found 
Eve near him, he desired to embrace her; yet, al- 
though her love exceeded his own, she forbade 
him, and said, " Allah is my lord ; it is only with his 
permission that I may be thine ! Besides, it is not 
meet that a woman should be wedded without a 
marriage gift." Adam then prayed the angel Ga- 
briel to intercede for him with Allah, that he might 
obtain Eve for his wife, and to inquire what marriage 
gift would be demanded ? The angel soon returned, 
and said, " Eve is thine, for Allah has created her 

names, replied immediately, " This is an ox, this an ass, that a 
horse, a camel," &c. (Compare Geiger, Was hat Mohamed aus 
dem. Judenthum aufgenommen, p. 99, &c.) 



6 THE ENTEANCE INTO PAKADISE. 

only for thee ! Love her as thyself, and treat her with 
indulgence and kindness. The marriage gift which 
he requires of thee is, that thou shouldst pray twenty 
times for Mohamed, his beloved, whose body shall 
one day be formed out of thy flesh and blood, but 
whose soul has dwelt in Allah's presence many 
thousand years before the creation of the world."* 

BAdwhan, the guardian of Eden, came leading 
Meimun the winged horse, and a fleet she-camel. 
The one he presented to Adam, the other to Eve. 
The angel Gabriel assisted them in mounting, and 
conducted them to Paradise, where all the angels 
and animals present saluted them with the words, 
" Hail ! ye parents of Mohamed ! " 

In the midst of Paradise there stood a green silken 
tent, supported on golden pillars, and in the midst of 
it there was a throne, on which Adam seated himself 
with Eve, whereupon the curtains of the tent closed 
around them of their own accord. 

When Adam and Eve were afterwards walking 
through the garden, Gabriel came and commanded 

* The idea that many things existed before the creation of 
the world is purely Jewish. The Mussulmen adopted it. Some 
of them maintained that the Koran had existed before the world, 
which assertion excited many bloody contests among them. The 
Midrash Jalkut, p. 7., says, Seven things were in existence before 
the creation of the world : the Thora, Repentance, Paradise, 
Hell, the Throne of God, the name of the Messiah, and the 
holy Temple. Some maintain that the throne and the Thora 
really existed, while the Lord only thought of the other five 
before he created the world. 



THE PROHIBITION. / 

tliem in the name of Allah to go and bathe in one of 
the four rivers of Paradise. Allah himself then said 
to them, "I have appointed this garden for your 
abode ; it will shelter you from cold and heat, from 
hunger and thirst. Take, at your discretion, of every 
tiling that it contains ; only one of its fruits shall be 
denied you. Beware that ye transgress not this one 
command, and watch against the wily rancour of Iblis ! 
He is your enemy, because he was overthrown on 
your account ; his cunning is infinite, and he aims at 
your destruction." 

The newly- created pair attended to Allah's words, 
and lived a long time, some say five hundred years, in 
Paradise without approaching the forbidden tree. But 
Iblis also had listened to Allah, and resolving to lead 
man into sin, wandered constantly in the outskirts of 
heaven, seeking to glide unobservedly into Para- 
dise. But its gates were shut, and guarded by the 
angel Bidwhan. One day the peacock came out of 
the garden. He was then the finest of the birds of 
Paradise, for his plumage shone like pearl and eme- 
rald, and his voice was so melodious that he was ap- 
pointed to sing the praises of Allah daily in the main 
streets of heaven. 

Iblis, on seeing him, said to himself, " Doubtless this 
beautiful bird is very vain : perhaps I may be able to 
induce him by flattery to bring me secretly into 
the garden." 

When the peacock had gone so far from the gates 



8 

that lie could no longer be overheard by Bidwhan, 
Iblis said to him, — 

" Most wonderful and beautiful bird ! art thou of 
the birds of Paradise?" 

" I am ; but who art thou, who seemest frightened 
as if some one did pursue thee ? " 

" I am one of those cherubim who are appointed 
to sing without ceasing the praises of Allah, but 
have glided away for an instant to visit the Paradise 
which he has prepared for the faithful. Wilt thou 
conceal me under thy beautiful wings ? " 

" Why should I do an act which must bring the 
displeasure of Allah upon me ? " 

" Take me with thee, charming bird, and I will 
teach thee three mysterious words which shall preserve 
thee from sickness, age, and death." 

(i Must then the inhabitants of Paradise die ? " 

" All, without exception, who know not the three 
words which I possess." 

" Speakest thou the truth ? " 

"By Allah the Almighty !" 

The peacock believed him, for he did not even 
dream that any creature would swear falsely by its 
maker ; yet, fearing lest Eidwhan might search him 
too closely on his return, he steadily refused to take 
Iblis along with him, but promised to send out the 
serpent, who might more easily discover the means of 
introducing him unobservedly into the garden, 

Now the serpent was at first the queen of all beasts. 



THE PEACOCK AND THE SERPENT. 9 

Her head was like rubies, and her eyes like emerald. 
Her skin shone like a mirror of various hues. Her 
hair was soft like that of a noble virgin ; and her 
form resembled the stately camel ; her breath was 
sweet like musk and amber, and all her words were 
songs of praise. She fed on saffron, and her resting- 
places were on the blooming borders of the beautiful 
Cantharus.* She was created a thousand years before 
Adam, and destined to be the playmate of Eve. 

" This fair and prudent being," said the peacock to 
himself, "must be even more desirous than I to 
remain in eternal youth and vigour, and will un- 
doubtedly dare the displeasure of Bidwhan at the 
price of the three invaluable words." He was right in 
his conjecture, for no sooner had he informed the serpent 
of his adventure than she exclaimed, fe Can it be so ? 
shall I be visited by death? shall my breath expire? my 
tongue be paralysed? and my limbs become im- 
potent ? shall my eyes and ears be closed in night ? 
and this noble form of mine, shall it perish in the 
dust ? — never, never ! — even if BMwhan's wrath 
should light upon me, I will hasten to the cherub, 
and will lead him into Paradise, so he but teach me 
the three mysterious words." 

The serpent ran forthwith out of the gate, and 
Iblis repeated to her what he had said to the peacock, 
confirming his words by an oath. 

* One of the rivers of Paradise. 
b 5 



10 THE TEMPTATION. 

ee How can I bring thee into Paradise unobserved?" 
inquired the serpent. 

" I will contract myself into so small a bulk that 
I shall find room in a cavity of thy teeth ! " 

" But how shall I answer Eidwhan if he addresses 
me?" 

" Fear nothing ; I will utter holy names that shall 
render him speechless." 

The serpent then opened her mouth — Iblis flew into 
it, and seating himself in the hollow part of her front 
teeth, poisoned them to all eternity. When they 
had passed Ridwhan, who was not able to utter a 
sound, the serpent opened her mouth again, expecting 
that the cherub would resume his natural shape, but Iblis 
preferred to remain where he was, and to speak to 
Adam from the serpent's mouth, and in her name. 
After some resistance, she consented, from fear of 
Ridwhan, and from her anxiety to obtain the myste- 
rious words. Arrived at Eve's tent, Iblis heaved a 
deep sigh : — the first which envy had forced from any 
living breast. 

" Why art thou so cast down to-day, my beloved 
serpent ? " inquired Eve, who had heard the sigh. 

" I am anxious for the future destiny of thee and 
Of thy husband," replied Iblis, imitating the voice of 
the serpent. 

" How ? do we not possess in these gardens of 
Eden all that we can desire ? " 

" True : and yet the best of the fruits of this 



THE TEMPTATION. 11 

garden., and the only one which can procure you 
perfect felicity, is denied you." 

" Have we not fruits in abundance, of every 
taste and colour ; why should we regret this one ? " 

" If thou knewest why this fruit is denied you, all 
the rest would afford thee no pleasure." 

" Knowest thou the reason ? " 

" I do ; and it is precisely this knowledge which fills 
my heart with care ; for while all the fruits which 
are given you bring with them weakness, disease, 
old age, and death, that is, the entire cessation of 
life, this forbidden fruit alone bestows eternal youth 
and vigour." 

" Thou hast never spoken of these things until 
now, beloved serpent; whence derivest thou this 
knowledge?" 

" An angel informed me of it whom I met under 
the forbidden tree." 

Eve answered, " I will go and speak with him ; " 
and leaving her tent, she hurried towards the tree. 

On the instant, Iblis, who knew Eve's curiosity, 
sprang out of the serpent's mouth, and was stand- 
ing under the forbidden tree, in the shape of an 
angel, but with a human face, before Eve had 
reached it. 

" Who art thou, singular being," she inquired, 
" whose like I have never seen ? " 

" I was man, but have become an angel." 

" By what means ? " 

B 6 



12 THE FORBIDDEN TREE. 

" By eating of this blessed fruit, which an envious 
God had forbidden me to taste on pain of death. I 
long submitted to his command, until I became old 
and frail; my eyes lost their lustre and grew dim, 
my ears no longer heard, my teeth decayed, and I 
could neither eat without pain, nor speak with distinct- 
ness. My hands trembled, my feet shook, my head 
hung down upon my breast, my back was bent, and 
my whole appearance became at last so frightful that 
all the inhabitants of Paradise fled from me. I then 
longed for death, and expecting to meet it by eating 
of this fruit, I stretched out my hands and took of 
it, but lo ! it had scarcely touched my lips, when I 
became strong and beautiful as at first ; and though 
many thousand years have since elapsed, I am not 
sensible of the slightest change either in my appear- 
ance or in my energies." 

" Speakest thou the truth ? " 

<e By Allah, who created me, I do ! " 

Eve trusted to his oath, and plucked an ear of the 
wheat-tree. 

Now before Adam's sin, wheat grew upon the 
finest tree of Paradise. Its trunk was of gold, its 
branches were of silver, and its leaves of emerald. 
From every branch there sprung seven ears of ruby, 
each ear contained five grains, and every grain was 
white as snow, sweet as honey, fragrant as musk, 
and as large as an ostrich's egg. Eve ate one of 
these grains, and finding it more pleasant than all 



THE FALL. 13 

she had hitherto tasted, she took a second one and 
presented it to her husband. 

Adam resisted long — our doctors say, a whole 
hour of paradise, which means eighty years of our 
time on earth ; but when he observed that Eve re- 
mained fair and happy as before, he yielded to her 
importunity at last, and eat the second grain of 
wheat which she had had constantly with her, and 
presented to him three times every day. 

Scarcely had Adam received the fruit, when his 
crown rose towards heaven — his rings fell from his 
fingers, and his silken robe dropped from him. Eve 
too stood spoiled of her ornaments and naked before 
him, and they heard how all these things cried to 
them with one voice, i( Woe unto you ! your calamity 
is great, and your mourning will be long ■ — we were 
created for the obedient only — farewell until the re- 
surrection ! " — The throne which had been erected 
for them in the tent thrust them away and cried, 
" Rebels, depart ! " The horse Meimun, upon which 
Adam attempted to fly, would not suffer him to 
mount, and said, " Hast thou thus kept the covenant 
of Allah?" 

All the creatures of Paradise then turned from 
them and besought Allah to remove the human pair 
from that hallowed spot. Allah himself addressed 
Adam in a voice of thunder, and said, " Wast thou 
not commanded to abstain from this fruit, and fore- 
warned of the cunning of Iblis, thy foe?" Adam 



14 THE EXPULSION. 

attempted to flee from these upbraidings, and Eve 
would have followed him, but he was held fast by 
the branches of the tree Talh, and Eve was en- 
tangled in her own dishevelled hair, while a voice 
from the tree exclaimed, " From the wrath of Allah 
there is no escape — submit to his divine decree ! 
Leave this paradise," continued Allah, in tones of 
wrath, " both you and the creatures which have 
seduced you to transgress: by the sweat of your 
brow alone shall you earn your bread — the earth 
shall henceforth be your abode, and its possessions 
shall fill your hearts with envy and malice! Eve 
shall be visited with all kinds of sickness, and bear 
children in pain. The peacock shall be deprived of 
his voice, and the serpent of her feet. The darkest 
caverns of the earth shall be her dwelling-place, dust 
shall be her food, and to kill her bring sevenfold 
reward. But Iblis shall depart into the eternal pains 
of hell." 

Hereupon they were hurled down from Paradise 
with such precipitancy that Adam and Eve could 
scarcely snatch a leaf from one of the trees wherewith to 
cover themselves. Adam was flung out through the 
Gate of Repentance, teaching him that he might 
return through contrition ; Eve through the Gate of 
Mercy; the peacock and the serpent through the 
Gate of Wrath, but Iblis through that of the Curse. 

Adam came down on the island Serendib, Eve on 
Djidda, the serpent fell into the Sahara, the peacock 



REMORSE OF ADAM AND EVE. 15 

into Persia, and Iblis dropped into the torrent 
Aila. 

When Adam touched the earth, the eagle said to 
the whale, with whom he had hitherto lived on 
friendly terms, and had whiled away many an hour 
in pleasant converse on the shores of the Indian 
Ocean : " We must now part for ever; for the 
lowest depths of the sea and the loftiest mountain- 
tops will henceforth scarcely preserve us from the 
cunning and malice of men." 

Adam's distress in his solitude was so great that 
his beard began to grow, though his face had 
hitherto been smooth ; and this new appearance in- 
creased his grief until he heard a voice which said to 
him: " The beard is the ornament of man upon 
the earth, and distinguishes him from the weaker 
woman." 

Adam shed such an abundance of tears that all 
beasts and birds satisfied their thirst therewith ; but 
some of them sunk into the earth, and, as they still 
contained some of the juices of his food in Paradise, 
produced the most fragrant trees and spices. 

Eve also was desolate in Djidda, for she did not 
see Adam, although he was so tall that his head 
touched the lowest heaven, and the songs of the 
angels were distinctly audible to him. She wept 
bitterly, and her tears which flowed into the oceau 
were changed into costly pearls, while those which 
fell on the earth brought forth all beautiful flowers. 



16 SYMPATHY. 

Adam and Eve lamented so loudly that the east 
wind carried Eve's voice to Adam, while the west 
wind bore his to Eve. She wrung her hands over 
her head, which women in despair are still in the habit 
of doing; while Adam laid his right hand on his 
beard, which custom is still followed by men in 
sorrow unto this day. 

The tears flowed at last in such torrents from 
Adam's eyes, that those of his right eye started the 
Euphrates, while those of his left set the Tigris in 
motion. 

All nature wept with him, and the birds, and 
beasts, and insects, which had fled from Adam by 
reason of his sin, were now touched by his lamenta- 
tions, and came back to manifest their sympathy. 

First came the locusts, for they were formed out 
of the earth which remained after Adam was created. 
Of these there are seven thousand different kinds 
of every colour and size, some even as large as 
an eagle. They are governed by a king, to whom 
Allah reveals his will whenever he intends to chasten 
a wicked people, such as, for instance, the Egyptians 
were at the time of Pharaoh. The black letters on 
the back of their wings are ancient Hebrew, and 
signify, " There is but one only God. He over- 
comes the mighty, and the locusts are part of His 
armies, which he sends against sinners." 

When at last the whole universe grew loud with 
lamentation, and all created beings, from the smallest 



MEKCY TO ADAM. 17 

irlsect up to the angels who hold whole worlds 
in one hand, were weeping with Adam, Allah sent 
Gabriel to him with the words which were destined 
to save also the prophet Jonah in the whale's belly : — 

" There is no God besides thee. I have sinned ; 
forgive me through Mohamed, thy last and greatest 
prophet, whose name is engraved upon thy holy 
throne." 

As soon as Adam had pronounced these words with 
penitent heart, the portals of heaven were opened to 
him again, and Gabriel cried, "Allah has accepted 
thy repentance. Pray to him, and he will grant all 
thy requests, and even restore thee to Paradise at the 
appointed time. Adam prayed : — 

" Defend me against the future artifices of Iblis 
my foe ! " 

Allah replied : — 

" Say continually there is no God but one, and 
thou shalt wound him as with a poisoned arrow." 

46 Will not the meats and drinks of the earth, and 
its dwellings ensnare me ? " 

" Drink water, eat clean animals slain in the name 
of Allah, and build mosques for thy abode, so shall 
Iblis have no power over thee." 

" But if he pursue me with evil thoughts and 
dreams in the night ? " 

e{ Then rise from thy couch and pray." 

" Oh, Allah, how shall I always distinguish be- 
tween good and evil ? " 



18 MERCY TO EVE. 

" I will grant thee my guidance — two angels 
shall dwell in thy heart ; one to warn thee against 
sin, the other to lead thee to the practice of 
good." 

" Lord, assure me of thy pardon also for my future 
sins." 

" This thou canst only gain by works of righteous- 
ness ! — I shall punish sin but once, and reward 
sevenfold the good which thou shalt do." 

At the same time the angel Michael was sent to 
Eve, announcing to her also the mercy of Allah. 

6C With what weapons," inquired she, " shall I who 
am weak in heart and mind fight against sin ? " 

" Allah has endued thee with the feeling of shame, 
and through its power thou shalt subdue thy pas- 
sions, even as man conquers his own by faith." 

w Who shall protect me against the power of man, 
who is not only stronger in body and mind, but 
whom also the law prefers as heir and witness ? " 

(( His love and compassion towards thee, which I 
have put into his heart." 

" Will Allah grant me no other token of his 
favour ? " 

" Thou shalt be rewarded for all the pains of 
motherhood, and the death of a woman in childbed 
shall be accounted as martyrdom." 

Iblis, emboldened by the pardon of the human 
pair, ventured also to pray for a mitigation of his 
sentence, and obtained its deferment until the re- 



MEKCY TO SATAN. 19 

surrection, as well as an unlimited power over sinners 
who do not accept the word of Allah. 

" Where shall I dwell in the mean time ?" said he. 

" In ruins, in tombs, and all other unclean places 
shunned by man ! " 

" What shall be my food t* 

" All things slain in the name of idols." 

" How shall I quench my thirst ? " 

" With wine and intoxicating liquors ! " 

" What shall occupy my leisure hours ? " 

" Music, song, love-poetry, and dancing." 

" What is my watchword ? " 

" The curse of Allah until the day of judg* 
ment." 

" But how shall I contend with man, to whom thou 
hast granted two guardian angels, and who has re- 
ceived thy revelation ? " 

" Thy progeny shall be more numerous than his 
— for every man that is born, there shall come into 
the world seven evil spirits — but they shall be 
powerless against the faithful." 

Allah then made a covenant with the descend- 
ants of Adam. He touched Adam's back, and lo ! the 
whole human family which shall be born to the end of 
time issued forth from it, as small as ants, and ranged 
themselves right and left. 

At the head of the former stood Mohamed with 
the prophets and the rest of the faithful, whose 
radiant whiteness distinguished them from the sin- 



20 THE COVENANT. 

ners who were standing on Adam's left, headed by 
Kabil [Cain], the murderer of his brother. 

Allah then acquainted the progenitor of man with 
the names and destinies of each individual; and 
when it came to King David the prophet's turn, to 
whom was originally assigned a lifetime of only 
thirty years, Adam inquired, " How many years are 
appointed to me ? " 

" One thousand," was the answer ! * 

e< I will renounce seventy if thou wilt add them 
to the life of David!" 

Allah consented; but aware of Adam's forget- 
fulness, directed this grant to be recorded on a 
parchment, which Gabriel and Michael signed as 
witnesses, f 

Allah then cried to the assembled human family, 
" Confess that I am the only God, and that Mo- 

* Kine hundred and thirty years was the lifetime of Adam 
according to Gen. v. 3. 

f The Lord showed to Adam every future generation, with 
their heads, sages, and scribes. He saw that David was destined, 
to live only three hours, and said, " Lord and Creator of the 
world, is this unalterably fixed?" The Lord answered, — 

" It was my original design ! " 

" How many years shall I live ?" 

" One thousand." 

" Are grants known in Heaven ? " 

" Certainly ! " 

M I grant then seventy years of my life to David ! " 

What did Adam therefore do ? He gave a written grant, set 
his seal to it, and the same was done by v the Lord andMetatron, 
—Midrash Jalkut, p. 12. 



THE TEMPLE. 21 

hamed is my messenger." The hosts to the right 
made their confession immediately ; but those to the 
left hesitated, some repeating but one half of Allah's 
words, and others remaining entirely silent. And 
Allah continued : — " The disobedient and impenitent 
shall suffer the pains of eternal fire, but the faithful 
shall be blessed in Paradise ! " 

" So be it ! " responded Adam ; who shall call 
every man by name in the day of the resurrection, 
and pronounce his sentence according as the balance 
of justice shall decide. 

When the covenant was concluded, Allah once 
more touched Adam's back, and the whole human 
race returned to him. 

And when Allah was now about to withdraw his 
presence for the whole of this life from Adam, the 
latter uttered so loud a cry, that the whole earth 
shook to its foundations : the All-merciful thereupon 
extended his clemency, and said — "Follow yonder 
cloud, it shall lead thee to the place which lies di- 
rectly opposite my heavenly throne; build me a 
temple there, and when thou walkest around it, I 
shall be as near to thee as to the angels which en- 
compass my throne ! " 

Adam, who still retained his original stature, in a 
few hours made the journey from India to Mecca, 
where the cloud which had conducted him stood still. 
On Mount Arafa near Mecca, he found to his great 
joy Eve his wife, whence also this mountain (from 



22 REUNION. 

Arafa, to know, to recognise,} derives its name. They 
immediately began to build a temple with four gates, 
and they called the first gate, the gate of Adam; 
the second, the gate of Abraham ; the third, the gate 
of Ismael; and the fourth, the gate of Mohamed. 
The plan of the building they had received from the 
angel Gabriel, who had at the same time brought 
them a large diamond of exquisite brightness, which 
was afterwards sullied by the sins of men, and at last 
became entirely black. 

This black stone, the most sacred treasure of the 
blessed Kaaba, was originally the angel who guarded 
the forbidden tree, and was charged to warn Adam 
if he should approach it, but having neglected his 
trust, he was changed into a jewel, and at the day of 
judgment he shall resume his pristine form and 
return to the holy angels. 

Gabriel then instructed Adam in all the ceremonies 
of pilgrimage, precisely as they were instituted by 
Mohamed at a later period; nor was he permitted 
to behold Eve his wife until the evening of Thursday, 
when the holy days were ended. 

On the following morning Adam returned with 
his wife to India, and abode there during the re- 
mainder of his life. But he went every year on a 
pilgrimage to Mecca, until he at last lost his original 
size, retaining a height of only sixty yards. This 
diminution of his stature, according to the tradition of 
the learned, was caused by the excessive terror and 



CAIN AND ABEL. 23 

grief which he experienced in consequence of the 
murder of Abel. 

For Eve had bom him two sons, whom he named 
Kabil and Habil [Cain and Abel], and several 
daughters, whom he gave in marriage to their 
brothers. The fairest of them he intended for Abel, 
but Cain was displeased, and desired to obtain her, 
though he had a wife already. Adam referred the 
decision to Allah, and said to his sons, " Let each 
of you offer a sacrifice, and he to whom Allah 
vouchsafes a sign of acceptance shall marry her." 
Abel offered a fatted ram, and fire came down from 
heaven and consumed it; but Cain brought some 
fruits, which remained untouched upon the altar. 
He was thereupon filled with envy and hatred towards 
his brother, but knew not how he might destroy his 
life.* 

One day Iblis placed himself in Cain's way, as he 
walked with Abel in the field, and seizing a stone 
shattered therewith the head of an approaching 
wolf; Cain followed his example, and with a large 

* Cain and Abel divided the world between them, the one 
taking possession of the movable, and the other of the im- 
movable'property. Cain said to his brother, " The earth on 
which thou standest is mine, then betake thyself to the air ;" but 
Abel replied, " The garments which thou wearest are mine, take 
them off ! " There arose a conflict between them, which ended 
in Abel's death. R. Huna teaches, They contended for a twin 
sister of Abel's : the latter claimed her because she was born with 
him ; but Cain pleaded his right of primogeniture. — Midrash, 
p. 11. 



24 DEATH OF ABEL. 

stone struck his brother's forehead till he fell lifeless 
to the ground. Iblis then assumed the shape of a 
raven, and having killed another raven, dug a hole 
in the earth with his bill, and laying the dead one 
into it, covered it with the earth which he had dug 
up. Cain did the same with his brother *, so that 
Adam was long in ignorance of the fate of his son, 
and shrunk together through care and sorrow. It 
was not until he had fully learned what had befallen 
Abel, that he resigned himself to the will of Allah, 
and was comforted. 

Now the discovery of Abel's corpse took place in this 
wise : — Since his expulsion from Eden, Adam had 
lived on wild herbs, fruits, and meat, when at Allah's 
command the angel Gabriel brought him the re- 
maining grains of wheat which Eve had plucked, a 
yoke of oxen, the various implements of husbandry, 
and instructed him in ploughing, sowing and reaping. 

* The dog which had watched Abel's flocks, guarded also his 
corpse, protecting it against the beasts and birds of prey. Adam 
and Eve sat beside it, and wept, not knowing what to do. 
But a raven, whose friend had died, said, " I will go and teach 
Adam what he must do with his son." It dug a grave and 
laid the dead raven in it. When Adam saw this he said to Eve, 
" Let us do the same with our child." The Lord rewarded the 
raven, and no one is allowed therefore to harm their young ; they 
have food in abundance, and their cry for rain is always 
heard. E. Johanan teaches, Cain was not aware of the Lord's 
knowledge of hidden things ; he therefore buried Abel, and re- 
plied to the Lord's inquiry, "Where is Abel, thy brother?" 
" Am I my brother's keeper ?" — Midrash, p. 11. 



BREAD, THE CHIEF FOOD OF MAN. 25 

While he was one day working in the field, his 
plough suddenly stopped, nor were all the exertions 
of his eattle able to move it. Adam struck the oxen, 
and the eldest of them said to him : 

" Why dost thou strike me ? did Allah strike thee 
when thou wast disobedient ? " 

Adam prayed. " O Allah ! after thou hast for- 
given my sin, shall every beast of the field be per- 
mitted to reprove me ? " 

Allah heard him, and from that moment the brute 
creation lost the power of speech. Meanwhile, as the 
plough still remained immovable, Adam opened the 
ground, and found the still distinguishable remains of 
his son Abel. 

At the time of harvest, Gabriel came again and 
instructed Eve in making bread. Adam then built an 
oven, and Gabriel brought fire from hell, but first 
washed it seventy times in the sea, otherwise it would 
have consumed the earth with all that it contained. 
When the bread was baked, he said to Adam : 

" This shall be thy and thy children's chief nou- 
rishment." 

Although Adam had shed so many tears over 
the labour of the plough, that they served instead of 
rain to moisten and to fructify the seed, yet were 
his descendants doomed to still greater toil by reason 
of their iniquities. Even in the days of (Enoch) 
Idris, the grain of wheat was no larger than a gooseys 
egg : in those of Elias it shrunk to the size of a 

c 



26 THE FOKGOTTEN GEANT. 

lien's egg : when the Jews attempted to kill Christ, 
it became like a pigeon's egg; and, finally/ under 
Uzier's (Esclras's) rule it took its present bulk. 

When Adam and Eve were fully instructed in 
agriculture and cookery, the angel Gabriel brought 
a lamb, and taught Adam to kill it in the name of 
Allah, to shear its wool, to strip its hide, and to 
tan it. Eve spun and wove under the angel's 
direction, making a veil for herself, and a garment 
for Adam, and both Adam and Eve imparted the in- 
formation which they had received from Gabriel to 
their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, in 
number forty, or according to others, seventy, 
thousand. 

After the death of Abel and Cain, the latter of 
whom was slain by the blood-avenging angel, Eve 
gave birth to a third son, whom she called Sheth; 
he became the father of many sons and daughters, 
and is the ancestor of all prophets. 

The 930th year of Adam's life came at last to its 
close ; and the Angel of Death appeared to him in the 
shape of an unsightly he-goat, and demanded his soul : 
while the earth opened under his feet, and demanded 
his body. Adam trembled with fear, and said to the 
Angel of Death, " Allah has promised me a lifetime 
of a thousand years: thou hast come too soon." " Hast 
thou not granted seventy years of thy life to David ? " 
replied the Angel. Adam denied it, for he had indeed 
forgotten the circumstance ; but the Angel of Death 



DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE. 27 

drew forth from his beard the parchment in which the 
grant was written, and spread it out before Adam, 
who, on seeing it, willingly gave up his soul. 

His son Sheth washed and buried him, after that 
Gabriel, or, according to others, Allah himself, had 
pronounced a blessing. The same was done with 
Eve, who died in the following year. 

In regard to the places of their burial, the learned 
differ. Some have named India ; other traditions fix 
on Mount Kubeis, and even on Jerusalem. Allah 
alone is omniscient. 



c 2 



28 



IDRIS, or ENOCH. 

Idris, or Enoch, was the son of Jarid, the son of 
Mahlalel, bnt was called Idris, from darasa (to study), 
for he was constantly occupied with the study of the 
holy books, both those which Allah had revealed 
to Adam, and those which Gabriel brought to 
him from heaven. He was so virtuous and pious, 
that Allah anointed him to be his prophet, and 
sent him as a preacher to the descendants of Cain, 
who only employed in deeds of sin the gigantic 
frames and surpassing strength with which Allah had 
endowed them. Enoch exhorted them unceasingly 
to purity of conduct, and was often compelled to 
draw his sword in defence of his life. He was the 
first who fought for Allah, the first who invented 
the balance to prevent deception in traffic, and the 
first also to sew garments, and to write with the 
Kalam. Idris longed ardently for paradise, still 
he was not desirous of death, for he was anxious 
to do good on the earth ; and but for his preaching 
and his sword *, the sons of Cain would have flooded 
the earth with iniquity. Allah sent him the 
Angel of Death in the form of a beautiful virgin, in 
order to see whether he would approve himself 

* See the E. Translator's Preface. 



THE TEMPTATION. 29 

worthy of the peculiar favour which no man before 
him had ever received. 

" Come with me," said the disguised angel to 
Idris; "and thou shalt do an acceptable work to 
Allah. My younger sister has been carried off by 
an ungodly descendant of Cain, who has confined 
her in the furthest regions of the West ! Gird 
on thy sword and help me to deliver her." 

Enoch girt on his sword, and took up his bow and 
the club, with which he had laid low at a single stroke 
whole ranks of the enemy, and followed the virgin 
from morn till eve, through desolate and arid deserts, 
but he said not a word and looked not upon her. At 
nightfall she erected a tent, but Idris laid himself 
down, at its entrance to sleep on the stony ground. 
On her inviting him to share her tent with her, he 
answered, " If thou hast any thing to eat, give it to 
me." She pointed to a sheep which was roving 
through the desert without a keeper, but he said, 
" I prefer hunger to theft ; the sheep belongs to 
another." 

Next day they continued their journey as before, 
Idris still following the virgin and uttering no com- 
plaint, though he was nearly overcome with hunger 
and thirst. Towards evening they found a bottle of 
water on the ground. The virgin took it up, and 
opening it would have forced Enoch to drink, but 
he refused, and said, " Some luckless traveller has 
lost it, and will return to seek for it." 
c 3 



30 TEMPTATION, FIRMNESS, AND REWARD. 

During the night, Idris having once more baffled 
all the wiles of the virgin, who had again endeavoured 
to draw him into her tent, Allah caused a spring of 
clear fresh water to gush forth at his feet, and a 
date tree to rise up laden with the choicest fruit. 
Idris invited the virgin to eat and to drink, and con- 
cealed himself behind the tree, waiting her return 
to the tent ; but when after a long interval she came 
not, he stepped to the door and said, " Who art thou, 
singular maiden? These two days thou hast been 
without nourishment, and art even now unwilling to 
break thy fast, though Allah himself has miraculously 
supplied us with meat and drink, and yet thou art 
fresh and blooming, like the dewy rose in spring, and 
thy form is full and rounded like the moon in Ker 
fifteenth night." 

" I am the Angel of Death," she replied, " sent by 
Allah to prove thee. Thou hast conquered; ask now, 
and he will assuredly fulfil all thy wishes." 

" If thou art the Angel of Death, take my soul." 

i( Death is bitter : wherefore desirest thou to die?" 

" I will pray to Allah to animate me once more, 
that after the terrors of the grave, I may serve him 
with greater zeal ! " 

" Wilt thou then die twice ? thy time has not yet 
come — but pray thou to Allah, and I shall execute 
His will." 

Enoch prayed : 

" Lord, permit the Angel of Death to let me 



MALIK. 3 1 

taste death, but recall me soon to life ! Art thou not 
almighty and merciful ? " 

The Angel of Death was commanded to take 
the soul of Idris, but at the same moment to restore 
it to him. On his return to life, Idris requested the 
angel to show him Hell, that he might be in a position 
to describe it to sinners with all its terrors. The 
angel led him to Malik, its keeper, who seized him and 
was on the eve of flinging him into the abyss, when a 
voice from heaven exclaimed, 

" Malik, beware ! harm not my prophet Idris, but 
show him the terrors of thy kingdom." 

He then placed him on the wall which separates 
hell from the place appointed as the abode of those 
who have merited neither hell nor heaven. Thence 
he saw every variety of scorpions and other venom- 
ous reptiles, and vast flames of fire, monstrous cal- 
drons of boiling water, trees with prickly fruits, rivers 
of blood and putrefaction, red-hot chains, garments 
of pitch, and so many other objects prepared for 
the torture of sinners, that he besought Malik to 
spare him their further inspection, and to consign him 
once more to the Angel of Death. 

Idris now prayed the latter to show him Paradise 
also. The Angel conducted him to the gate before 
which Eidhwan kept his watch. But the guardian 
would not suffer him to enter: then Allah com- 
manded the tree Tuba, which is planted in the midst 
of the garden, and is known to be, after Sirdrat 
c 4 



32 THE TRANSLATION 

Almuntaha, the most beautiful and tallest tree of 
Paradise, to bend its brandies over tlie wall. Idris 
seized bold of tbem and was drawn in unobserved 
by Ridhwan. The Angel of Death attempted to 
preyent it, but Allah said, "Wilt thou slay him 
twice ? " Thus it came to pass that Idris was taken 
alive into Paradise, and was permitted by the most 
gracious One to remain there in spite of the Angel 
of Death and of EAdhwam* 

* In the Bible it is said the Lord took Enoch ; but the 
Midrash adds, nine human beings entered Paradise alive : 
Enoch, Messiah, Elias, Eliezer the servant of Abraham, the 
servant of the King of Kush, Chiram the King of Tyre, Jaabez, 
the son of the Prince and Rabbi Juda, Serach the daughter of 
Asher, and Bitja the daughter of Pharaoh. 



33 



NOAH, HUD, and SALIH. 

After the translation of Idris, the depravity of men 
waxed so mightily, that Allah determined to destroy 
them by a flood. But the prophet Noah, who had 
in tain attempted to restore his followers to the path 
of virtue, was saved : for Allah commanded him to 
build an ark for himself and family, and to enter it 
as soon as his wife should see the scalding waters 
streaming from the oven.* This was the beginning 
of the flood ; for it was followed by incessant rains from 
heaven (as from well-filled leathern bottles into which a 
sharp instrument has been plunged), which mingling 
with the subterraneous waters that issued forth from all 
the veins of the earth, produced an inundation which 
none save the giant Audj the son of Anak survived, f 
The ark floated during forty days from one end of 
the earth to the other, passing over the highest 
mountains ; but when it came to Mount Abu Ku- 

* The generation of the flood was chastised with scalding 
water. — Midrash, p. 14. 

f Beside Noah, Og the King of Bashan was saved, for he 
seized hold on one of the beams of the Ark, and swore to Noah 
that he and his posterity would serve him as bondmen. Noah 
made an opening through the wall of the Ark, and gave Og 
some food daily, for it is written, " Only Og the King of Bashan 
survived of all the giants." — Midrash, p. 14. 
c 5 



34 THE RELAPSE. 

beis, on whose peak Allah had concealed the black 
diamond of the Kaaba, that it might serve in the 
second building of this blessed temple, it rode seven 
times round the sacred spot. At the lapse of six 
months the ark rested on Mount Djudi in Mesopo- 
tamia, and Noah left it as soon as the dove which 
he had sent to examine the state of the earth re- 
turned with an olive leaf in its mouth. Noah 
blessed the dove, and Allah gave her a necklace of 
green feathers ; but the raven which Noah had sent 
out before the dove, he cursed, because, instead of 
returning to him, it stayed to feast on a carcass 
which it found on the earth *, wherefore the raven is 
no longer able to walk like other birds. 

But spite of the calamities of the flood, which 
Allah intended to serve for ever as a warning 
against sin, Iblis soon succeeded in banishing 
virtue and goodness from the human family as be- 
fore. Even Noah's sons, Cham and Japhet, forgot 
the reverence that was due to their father, and left 
him uncovered when one day they found him asleep. 
Cham even derided him, and became on this account 
the father of all the black races of mankind. Japhet's 
descendants remained white, indeed, but it was writ- 
ten that none of them should attain to the dignity 

* The Midrasli, p. 15., relates the same, and draws from it 
the conclusion that no one should seek to accomplish his ends 
by (unclean) unlawful means ; the raven being unclean (un- 
lawful), but the dove being clean. 



THE ENCHANTED CITY. 35 

of a prophet. Sham (Shem) is the sole ancestor of 
the prophets, among whom Hud and Salih, who 
lived immediately after the flood, attained to high dis- 
tinction. * Hud was sent to the nation of giants 
which dwelt in Eclom, a province of the Southern 
Arabia, then governed by King Shaddad, the son 
of Aad. When the prophet exhorted this king to 
the faith and fear of Allah, he inquired, "What shall be 
the reAvard of my obedience ?" " My Lord," replied 
the prophet, "will give thee in the life to come 
gardens of eternal verdure, and palaces of gold and 
jewels." But the king answered, " I stand not in 
need of thy promises, for I can even in this world 
build me gardens and pleasure-houses of gold and 
costly pearls and jewels." He then built Irem, and 
called it the City of Columns, for each of its palaces 
rested on a thousand columns of rubies and emeralds, 
and each column was a hundred cubits high. He 
next constructed canals, and planted gardens teeming 
with the finest fruit trees and the fairest flowers. 

When all was completed with prodigal magni- 
ficence, Shaddad said, "lam now in actual possession 
of all that Hud has promised me for the life to come." 
But when he would have made his entrance into the 
city, Allah concealed it from him and his followers, 

* Hud is probably the Eber of the Scriptures, whom the 
Rabbis esteem as a prophet, and the founder of a celebrated 
school of divinity. 

c 6 



38 THE LOST TRIBES OF HUD AND THAMUD, 

nor has it since been seen by man, save once in the 
reign of Maccavia. 

The king and his people then wandered through 
the wilderness in rain and tempest, and at last 
sought shelter in caves. But Allah caused them to 
fall in, and only Hud escaped. 

The destruction of this tribe induced their kins- 
men, the Thamudites, who numbered seventy thou- 
sand warriors, to choose the regions between Syria 
and Hedjaz as their abode, for they also feared to 
be destroyed, and hoped to secure themselves against 
the wrath of Allah, by building their houses in the 
rocks. Djundu Eben Omer, the king of the Tha- 
mudites, built him a palace there, whose splendour 
had never been equalled on the earth, and the high- 
priest Kanuch erected a similar one for himself, But 
their most costly and most perfect building was the 
temple. In it there stood an idol of the finest gold, 
and adorned with precious stones: it had a human 
face, a lion's figure, a bull's neck, and a horse's feet. 
One day, when Kanuch after his prayers had fallen 
asleep in the temple, he heard a voice which said, 
" Truth shall appear, and delusion shall vanish." He 
sprang to his feet in terror, and rushed towards the 
idol, but lo ! it was lying on the ground, and beside it 
lay the crown which had fallen from its head. Kanuch 
cried for help ; the king and his viziers hastened to 
the spot, restored the idol to its place, and replaced 
the crown on its head. But the occurrence made a 



THE HIGH PRIESTS. 37 

deep impression on the high-priest's mind. His faith 
in the idol failed, and his zeal to serve it cooled. 
The king soon discovered the change that had passed 
within him, and one day sent both his viziers to 
apprehend and to examine him. But scarcely had his 
messengers left the royal palace, when they were 
struck blind, and were unable to find Kanuch's 
dwelling. Meanwhile, Allah sent two angels who 
carried the high-priest to a distant valley unknown 
to his tribe, where a shady grotto, supplied with 
every convenience of life, was prepared for him. 
Here he lived peaceably in the service of the one 
God, and secure against the persecutions of Djundu, 
who in vain sent out messengers in every direction 
to discover him. The king gave up, at length, all 
hope of his capture, and appointed his own cousin, 
Davud, as high-priest in Kanuch's stead. But on 
the third day after his inauguration, Davud came to 
the king in haste, and reported ' that the idol had 
again fallen from its place. The king once more 
restored it, and Iblis cried from the idol, " Be stead- 
fast in my worship, and resist all the temptations 
into which some innovators would lead you." On 
the following feast-day, when Davud was about to 
offer two fat bulls to the idol, they said to him, with 
a human voice, " Why will you offer us, whom Allah 
has endued with life, as a sacrifice to a dead mass 
of gold which your own hands have dug from the 
earth, though Allah has created it? Destroy, O 



38 THE BIRD FROM PARADISE. 

Allah, so sinful a people ! " At these words the 
bulls fled, nor were the swiftest riders of the king 
able to overtake them. Yet it pleased Allah, in his 
wisdom and long-suffering, to spare the Thamudites 
still longer, and to send to them a prophet who 
should labour by many wonders to convince them of 
the truth. 

Ragwha, the wife of Kanuch, had not ceased 
to mourn since the flight of her husband ; yet 
in the third year, Allah sent to her a bird from 
Paradise, to conduct her to his grotto. This 
bird was a raven, but its head was as white as 
snow, its back was of emerald, its feet were of crimson, 
its beak was like the clearest sunbeam, and its eyes 
shone like diamonds, only its breast was black, for 
the curse of Noah, which made all ravens entirely 
black, had not fallen on this sacred bird. It was the 
hour of midnight when it stepped into Ragwha's dark 
chamber, where she lay weeping on a carpet, but the 
glance of its eyes lit up the chamber as if the sun 
had suddenly risen therein. She rose from her couch 
and gazed with wonder on the beautiful bird, which 
opened its mouth and said, " Rise and follow me, for 
Allah has pitied thy tears, and will unite thee to thy 
husband." She rose and followed the raven, which 
flew before her, changing the night into day by the 
light of its eyes, and the morning star had not yet 
risen when she arrived at the grotto. The raven 
now cried, " Kanuch, arise, and admit thy wife," 
and then vanished. 



salih. 39 

Within a year after their reunion, she gave 
birth to a son who was the very image of Seth, 
and the light of prophecy shone on his brow. His 
father called him Salih (the pious), for he trusted 
to bring him up in the faith of the one only God, and 
in piety of life ; but soon after Salih's birth Kanuch 
died, and the raven from Paradise came again to the 
grotto to take back Ragwha and her son to the 
city of Djundu, where Salih grew rapidly in mind 
and body, to the admiration of his mother, and 
of all who came to visit them; and at the age of 
eighteen he was the most powerful and handsome 
as well as the most gifted youth of his time. 

It then came to pass that the descendants 
of Ham undertook an expedition against the 
Thamudites, and were to all appearance on the 
point of destroying them. Their best warriors 
had already fallen, and the rest were preparing 
for flight, when Salih suddenly appeared on the 
battle-field, at the head of a few of his friends, and by 
his personal valour and excellent manoeuvres wrested 
the victory from the enemy, and routed them com- 
pletely. This achievement secured to him the love 
and gratitude of the more virtuous part of his tribe, 
but the king envied him from this day, and sought 
after his life. Yet as often as the assassins came to 
Salih's dwelling to slay him by the king's command, 
their hands were paralysed, and were only restored by 
Salih's intercession with Allah. In this wise, the 
believers in Salih and his invisible God gradually in- 



40 THE SLEEP. 

creased, so that there was soon formed a community 
of forty men who built a mosque, in which they wor- 
shipped in common. 

One day the king surrounded the mosque with his 
soldiers, and threatened Salih and his adherents with 
death unless Allah should save them by a special 
miracle. Salih prayed, and the leaves of the date- 
tree that grew before the mosque were instantly 
changed to scorpions and adders, which fell upon 
the king and his men, while two doves which dwelt 
on the roof of the mosque, exclaimed, " Believe in 
Salih, for he is the prophet and messenger of Allah." 
To this twofold wonder a second and third one were 
added, for at Salih's prayer the tree resumed its 
former shape, and some of the Thamudites who 
had been killed by the serpents returned to life again. 

But the king continued in unbelief, for Iblis spoke 
from the mouth of the idol, calling Salih a magician 
and a demon. 

The tribe was then visited by famine, but this also 
failed to convert them. When Salih beheld the 
stubbornness of the Thamudites he prayed to Allah 
to destroy so sinful a people. 

But he too, like his father, was carried by an 
angel to a subterraneous cave in sleep, and slept there 
twenty years. On waking he was about to go 
into the mosque to perform his morning devotions, 
for he imagined that he had slept only one night ; but the 
mosque lay in ruins ; he then went to see his friends 



THE REPROOF. 41 

and followers, but some of them were dead ; 
others, in the idea that he had abandoned them 
or been secretly slain, had gone to other countries, or 
returned to idolatry. Salih knew not what to do. 
Then appeared to him the angel Gabriel, and said, 
"Because thou hast hastily condemned thy people, 
Allah has taken from thee twenty years of thy life ; 
and thou hast passed them sleeping in the cave.* But 
rise and preach again. Allah sends thee here Adam's 
shirt, Abel's sandals, the tunic of Sheth, the seal of 
Idris, the sword of Noah, and the staff of Hud, with 
all of which thou shalt perform many wonders to 
confirm thy words." On the following day the king 
and priests and heads of the people, attended by many 
citizens, went in procession to a neighbouring chapel, 
in which an idol, similar to that of the temple, was 
worshipped. Salih stepped between the king and 
the door of the chapel ; and when the king asked him 

* The idea of a prophet's intercession with God is of 
Scriptural origin. Abraham and Moses interceded with God, 
the one for Sodom, the other for his people ; and according to 
the Hebrew legend, the Jews, on hearing Isaiah denouncing the 
judgments of God, threatened to put him to death, because he had 
not sought to turn away His wrath, as Moses had done under 
similar circumstances. Our Saviour's parable of the gardener, 
who begged another year's respite for the unfruitful tree, is on 
the same principle. So is also Christ's reproof to his disciples, 
when they would have called down fire from Heaven. The 
punishment of Salih, therefore, however prettily introduced, 
must, like every other truth of the Koran, be referred to the 
knowledge which the Moslem had of the Scriptures. — E. T. 



42 THE TEST. 

who he was, for Salih's ajipearance had so changed 
during the twenty years which he had spent in the 
cavern that the king did not recognise him, he an- 
swered, " I am Salih, the messenger of the one only 
God, who, twenty years ago, preached to thee, and 
showed thee many clear proofs of the truth of my 
mission. But since thou, as I perceive, still persistest 
in idolatry, I once more appear before thee in the name 
of the Lord, and by his permission offer to perform 
before thine eyes any miracle thou mayest desire in 
testimony of my prophetic calling." 

The king took counsel with Shihab his brother, 
and Davud his high-priest, who stood near him. 
Then said the latter, "If he be the messenger of 
Allah, let a camel come forth from this rocky moun- 
tain, one hundred cubits high, with all imaginable 
colours united on its back, with eyes flaming like 
lightning, with a voice like thunder, and with feet 
swifter than the wind." When Salih declared Ins 
readiness to produce such a camel, Davud added, 
" Its fore-legs must be of gold, and its hind-legs of 
silver, its head of emerald and its ears of rubies, and 
its back must bear a silken tent, supported on four 
diamond pillars inlaid with gold." Salih was not 
deterred by all these additional requirements: and the 
king added, " Hear, O Salih ! if thou be the prophet of 
Allah, let this mountain be cleft open, and a camel 
step forth with skin, hair, flesh, blood, bones, muscles, 
and veins, like other camels, only much larger, and 



GREEDY SCEPTICS. 43 

let it immediately give birth to a young camel, which 
shall follow it every where as a child follows its 
mother, and when scarcely produced exclaim, c There is 
but one Allah, and Salih is his messenger and pro- 
phet.'" 

" And will you turn to Allah if I pray to him, and 
if he perforin such a miracle before your eyes ? " 

" Assuredly ! " replied Davud. " Yet must this 
camel yield its milk spontaneously, and the milk must 
be cold in summer, and warm in winter." 

" Are these all your conditions?" asked Salih. 

" Still further," continued Shihab ; " the milk 
must heal all diseases, and enrich all the poor ; and 
the camel must go alone to every house, calling the 
inmates by name, and filling all their empty vessels 
with its milk." 

"Thy will be done!" replied Salih. "Yet I 
must also stipulate that no one shall harm the camel, 
or drive it from its pasture, or ride on it, or use it 
for any labour." 

On their swearing to him to treat the camel as a 
holy thing, Salih prayed : " O ! God, who hast cre- 
ated Adam out of the earth, and formed Eve from a 
rib, and to whom the hardest things are easy, let 
these rocks bring forth a camel, such as their king 
has described, for the conversion of the Thamudites." 

Scarcely had Salih concluded his prayer, when 
the earth opened at his feet, and there gushed forth 
a fountain of fresh water fragrant with musk; the 



44 THE MIRACLE. 

tent which had been erected for Adam in Paradise 
descended from heaven, and thereupon the rocky 
wall which supported the eastern side of the 
temple groaned like a woman in travail ; a night of 
birds descended, and filling their beaks with the 
water of the fountain, sprinkled it over the rock, and 
lo ! there was seen the head of the camel, which 
was gradually followed by the rest of its body ; when 
it stood upon the earth, it was exactly as it had been 
described by the king, and it cried out immediately : 
" There is no God but Allah, Salih is his messenger 
and prophet." The angel Gabriel then came down 
and touched the camel with his flaming sword, and it 
gave birth to a young camel which resembled it 
entirely, and repeated the confession that had 
been required. The camel then went to the dwell- 
ings of the people, calling them by name, and filling 
every empty vessel with its milk. On its way all 
animals bowed before it, and all the trees bent their 
branches to it in reverence. 

The king could no longer shut his heart to such 
proofs of God's almightiness and Salih's mission : he 
fell on the prophet's neck, kissed him and said, " I 
confess there is but one God, and that thou art his 
messenger ! " 

But the brother of the king, as well as Davud and all 
the priesthood, called it only sorcery and delusion, and 
invented all kinds of calumnies and falsehoods, to retain 
the people in unbelief and idolatry. Meanwhile, since 



THE PERJURY. 45 

the came], by constantly yielding its milk and praising 
Allah as often as it went down to the water, made 
daily new converts, the chiefs of the infidels resolved 
to kill it. But when many days had passed before they 
ventured to approach it, Shihab issued a proclamation, 
that whosoever should kill the mountain camel, should 
have his daughter Raj an to wife. Kadbar, a young 
man who had long loved this maiden, distinguished as 
she was for grace and beauty, but without daring 
to Woo her, being only a man of the people, armed 
himself with a huge sword, and attended by Davud 
and some other priests, fell upon the camel from 
behind while it was descending to the waters, and 
wounded it in its hoof. 

At that moment all nature uttered a frightful 
shriek of woe. The little camel ran moaning to the 
highest pinnacle of the mountain and cried, " May 
the curse of Allah light upon thee, thou sinful people ! " 
Salih and the king, who had not quitted him since 
his conversion, went into the city, demanding the 
punishment of Kadbar and his accomplices. But 
Shihab, who had in the meantime usurped the throne, 
threatened them with instant death. Salih, flying, 
had only time to say that Allah would wait their 
repentance only three days longer, and on the expir- 
ation of the third day would annihilate them like 
their brethren the Aaadites. His threat was fulfilled, 
for they were irreclaimable. Already on the next 
day the people grew as yellow as the seared leaves of 



46 THE DESTRUCTION. 

autumn ; and wherever the wounded camel trod there 
issued fountains of blood from the earth. On the 
second day their faces became red as blood ; but on 
the third, they turned black as coal, and on the 
same day, towards nightfall, they saw the camel 
hovering in the air on crimson wings, whereupon 
some of the angels hurled down whole mountains of 
fire, while others opened the subterraneous vaults of 
fire which are connected with hell, so that the earth 
vomited forth firebrands in the shape of camels. At 
sunset, all the Thamudites were a heap of ashes. 
Only Salih and king Djundu escaped, and wandered 
in company to Palestine, where they ended their 
days as hermits. 



47 



ABRAHAM. 

Soon after the death of Salih, the prophet Abraham 
was born at Susa, or, according to others, at Babylon. 
He was a contemporary of the mighty king, Mmrod, 
and his birth falls into the year 1081 after the flood, 
which happened in 2242 from the Fall. He was 
welcomed at his birth by the angel Gabriel, who imme- 
diately wrapped him in a white robe. Mmrod on the 
night in which Abraham was born — it was between 
the night of Thursday and Friday morning — heard 
a voice in his dream which cried alond, " Woe to them 
that shall not confess the God of Abraham — the truth 
has come to light, delusion vanishes ! " He also dreamt 
that the idol which he worshipped had fallen down ; 
and convened, therefore, on the following morning all 
his priests and sorcerers, communicating to them 
his dream. Yet no one knew how to interpret it, or 
to give any account of Abraham. Ninrrod had already 
once in a dream seen a star which eclipsed the light of 
sun and moon, and had, therefore, been warned by his 
sorcerers of a boy who threatened to deprive him of 
his throne, and to annihilate the people's faith in him, 
— for Mmrod caused himself to be worshipped as 
God. Yet, seeing that since that dream he had com- 



48 THE CHILDHOOD OF ABEAHAM. 

manded every new-born male to be slain at its birth, he 
did not think there was any need for further apprehen- 
sion. Abraham alone was saved of the children who 
were born at that time by a miracle of heaven, for 
his mother had remained so slender during her whole 
pregnancy that no one had thought of it, and when her 
hour came she fled to a cave beyond the city, where, 
aided by the angel Gabriel, she was secretly delivered. 
In this cave Abraham remained concealed, during 
.fifteen months, and his mother visited him sometimes 
to nurse him. But he had no need of her food, for 
Allah commanded water to flow from one of Abra- 
ham's fingers, milk from another, honey from the 
third, the juice of dates from the fourth, and butter 
from the fifth. On stepping, for the first ame, 
beyond the cave, and seeing a beautiful star, Abraham 
said, "This is my God, which has given me meat 
and drink in the cave." Yet^anon the moon arose in 
full splendour, exceeding the light of the star, and 
he said, " This is not God ; I will worship the moon." 
But when, towards morning, the moon waxed more 
and more pale, and the sun rose, he acknowledged 
the latter as a divinity, until he also disappeared from 
the horizon. He then asked his mother, "Who is 
my God?" and she replied, 

"It is I." 

"And who is thy God?" he inquired further. 

" Thy father." 

" And who is my father's God ? " 



CHALIL ALLAH. 49 

"Nimrod!"— 

"And Nimrod's God?" 

She then struck him on the face, and said, "Be 
silent ! " He was silent, but thought within him- 
self, " I acknowledge no other God than Him who has 
created heaven and earth, and all that is in them." 
When he was a little older, his father, Aser, who was 
a maker of idols, sent him out to sell them ; but Abra- 
ham cried, " Who will buy what can only do him harm, 
and bring no good?" so that no one bought of him. 
One day, when all his townsmen had gone on a pil- 
grimage to some idol, he feigned sickness, and remain- 
ing alone at home, destroyed two-and-seventy idols, 
which were set up in the temple. It was then that 
he obtained the honourable surname of Chalil Allah 
(the friend of God). But on the return of the pil- 
grims he was arrested, and brought before Nimrod ; 
for suspicion soon rested upon him, both on account of 
his stay at home, and the contemptuous reflections on 
the worship of idols, in which he was known to in- 
dulge. Nimrod condemned him to be burnt alive as 
a blasphemer.* The people of Babel then collected 

* The Jewish legend respecting Abraham's contempt of 
idolatry and his sentence to be burnt alive is as follows : — 
" Terah was an idolater, and, as he went one day on a journey, 
he appointed Abraham to sell his idols in his stead. As often 
as a purchaser came, Abraham inquired his age, and when he 
replied, ' I am fifty or sixty years old,' he said, ' Woe to the 
man of sixty who would worship the work of a day ! ' — so 
that the purchasers went away ashamed. 

D 



50 THE PILE. 

wood for a pile during a whole month, or according 
to some of the learned, during forty days, and at that 
time knew of no more God-pleasing work than this : 
so that if any one was sick, or desired to obtain any 
favour from his gods, he vowed to carry a certain 
quantity of wood upon his recovery, or on the fulfil- 
ment of his wish. The women were especially active ; 
they washed, or did other manual work, for hire, 
and bought wood with their earnings. When at last 

" One day a woman came with a bowl of fine flour and said, 
' Set it before them ; ' but he took a staff and broke all the 
idols in pieces, and placed the staff in the hands of the largest 
of them. When his father returned he inquired, 'Who has 
done this ?' Abraham said, ' Why should I deny it ? there was 
a woman here with a bowl of fine flour, and she directed me to 
set it before them. When I did so, every one of them would 
have eaten first ; then arose the tallest, and demolished them 
with the staff.' Terah said, " What fable art thou telling me ? 
have they any understanding ? ' 

" Abraham replied, ' Do not thy ears hear what thy lips utter ? ' 

" Whereupon Terah took him and delivered him to Nimrod, 
who said to Abraham, ' Let us worship the fire ! ' 

" ' Rather the water that quenches the fire.' 

" ' Well, the water.' 

" ' Rather the cloud which carries the water.' 

« ' Well, the cloud.' 

" ' Rather the wind that scatters the cloud.' 

" ' Well, the wind.' 

" ' Rather man, for he endures the wind.' 

" ' Thou art a babbler,' replied the king. ' I worship the fire, 
and will cast thee into it. May the God whom thou adorest 
deliver thee thence ! ' 

" Abraham was thrown into a heated furnace, but was saved." 
— Vide Geiger, i. p. 124. 



nimrod's ambition. 51 

the pile had attained a height of thirty cubits and 
a breadth of twenty, Nimrod commanded it to be set 
on fire. Then there mounted on high such a mighty 
flame, that many birds in the air were consumed 
by it ; the smoke which arose darkened the whole 
city, and the crackling of the wood was heard at the 
distance of a day's journey. Then Nimrod summoned 
Abraham, and asked him again, " Who is thy God ? " 

" He that has power to kill and to make alive 
again," Abraham replied. He thereupon conjured 
up a man from the grave who had died many years 
ago, and commanded him to bring a white cock, a 
black raven, a green pigeon, and a speckled peacock. 
When he had brought these birds, Abraham cut 
them into a thousand pieces, and flung them into 
four different directions, retaining only the four heads 
in his hands. Over these he said a prayer, then 
called each bird by name, and behold the little pieces 
came flying towards him, and, combining as they had 
been, united themselves to their heads. The birds 
lived as before, but he who had been raised from 
the dead, at Abraham's command, descended again 
into the grave. 

Nimrod then caused two malefactors to be brought 
from prison, and commanded one of them to be 
executed, but pardoned the other, saying, i( I also 
am God, for I too have the disposal of life and 
death." However childish this remark was, for he only 
had the power of remitting the sentence of a living 

D 2 



52 SYMPATHY. 

man, not of restoring the dead to life, Abraham did 
not object, but, in order to silence him at once, said, 
" Allah causes the sun to rise in the East ; if thou be 
Allah, let it for once rise in the West. But, instead 
of replying, Nimrod commanded his servants to fling 
Abraham into the fire, by means of an engine which 
Satan himself had suggested to him. 

At the same instant the heaven with all its angels, 
and the earth with all its creatures, cried as with one 
voice, " God of Abraham ! thy friend, who alone 
worships thee on earth, is being thrown into the fire ; 
permit us to rescue him." The angel that presideth 
over the reservoirs was about to extinguish the flames 
by a deluge from on high, and he that keepeth the winds 
to scatter them by a tempest to all parts of the world: 
but Allah, blessed be His name ! said, "I permit every 
one of you to whom Abraham shall cry for pro- 
tection to assist him ; yet if he turn only to me, then 
let me by my own immediate aid rescue him from 
death.* Then cried Abraham from the midst of the 
pile, " There is no God besides thee ; thou art 
Supreme, and unto thee alone belong praise and 
glory ! " The flame had already consumed his robe, 
when the angel Gabriel stepped before him and asked, 
" Hast thou need of me ? " 

* The Midrash, p. 20., says, " When the wicked Nimrod cast 
Abraham into the furnace, Gabriel said, * Lord of the world, 
suffer me to save this saint from the fire ! ' but the Lord replied, 
* I am the only one supreme in my world, and he is supreme in 
his; it is meet, therefore, that the supreme should save the 
supreme.'" 



DIVIDE INTEKPOSITION. 53 

But he replied, " The help of Allah alone is what 
I need!" 

" Pray then to Him that he may save thee ! " re- 
joined Gabriel. 

" He knows my condition," answered Abraham. 

All the creatures of the earth now attempted to 
quench the fire, the lizard alone blew upon it ; and, 
as a punishment, became dumb from that hour. 

At Allah's command, Gabriel now cried to the fire, 
" Become cool, and do Abraham no harm ! " To these 
last words Abraham was indebted for his escape, for at 
the sound of Gabriel's voice it grew so chill around 
him, that he was well nigh freezing; and the cold 
had therefore to be diminished again. The fire then 
remained as it was, burning on as before ; but it had 
miraculously lost all its warmth ; and this was not 
only so with Abraham's pile, but with all fires lighted 
on that day throughout the whole world. 

Allah then caused a fountain of fresh water to 
spring up in the midst of the fire, and roses and 
other flowers to rise out of the earth at the spot 
where Abraham was lying. He likewise sent him 
a silken robe from Paradise, and an angel in human 
shape, who kept him company during seven days ; 
for so long he remained in the fire. These seven 
days Abraham in later times frequently called the 
most precious of his life. 

His miraculous preservation in the pile became 
the cause of his marriage with Radha, the daughter 

D 3 



54 THE PKLKTCESS. 

of Nimrod. For on the seventh day after Abra- 
ham was cast into the fire, she prayed her father 
for permission to see him. Nimrod endeavoured to 
dissuade her from it, and said, " What canst thou see 
of him? He has long ere now been changed into 
ashes." Yet she ceased not to entreat him, until he 
suffered her to go near the pile. There she beheld 
Abraham, through the fire, sitting quite comfortable in 
the midst of a blooming garden. Amazed, she called 
out, " Oh, Abraham, does not the fire consume thee ?" 
He replied, " Whoever keeps Allah in his heart, and 
the words, c In the name of Allah the All-merciful, 1 
on his tongue, over him has fire no power." 

Whereupon she begged his permission to approach 
him, but he said, " Confess that there is but one only 
God, who has chosen me to be his messenger ! " As 
soon as she had made this confession of her faith, the 
flames parted before her, so that she was able to 
reach Abraham unharmed. But when she returned 
to her father, and told him in what condition she 
had found the prophet, and sought to convert him 
to his faith, he tormented and tortured her so cruelly, 
that Allah commanded an angel to deliver her from 
his hands, and conduct her to Abraham, who had 
meanwhile left the city of Babel. 

Still Nimrod was far from being reclaimed; he even 
resolved to build a lofty tower, wherewith, if possible, 
to scale the heavens, and to search therein for the God 
of Abraham. The tower rose to a height of five thousand 



THE BLOOD-STAINED ARROW. 55 

cubits; but as heaven was still far off, and the work- 
men were unable to proceed further with the building, 
Nimrod caught two eagles and kept them upon the 
tower, feeding them constantly with flesh. He then 
left them to fast for several days, and when they were 
ravenous with hunger, he fastened to their feet a light 
closed palankin, with one window above and another 
below, and seated himself in it with one of his 
huntsmen. The latter took a long spear, to which 
a bit of flesh was attached, and thrust it through 
the upper window, so that the famishing eagles 
flew instantly upwards, bearing the palankin aloft. 
When they had flown towards heaven during a whole 
day, Mmrod heard a voice, which cried to him, " God- 
less man, whither goest thou ? " Mmrod seized the 
bow of his huntsman, and discharged an arrow, which 
forthwith fell back through the window stained with 
blood, and this abandoned man believed that he had 
wounded the God of Abraham. 

But as he was now so far from the earth, that it 
appeared to him no larger than an egg, he ordered 
the spear to be held downwards, and the eagles 
and the palankin descended. 

Respecting the blood which was seen on Nimrod's 
arrow, the learned are not agreed as to whence it came : 
many contend it was the blood of a fish whom the 
clouds had carried with them from the sea, and adduce 
this circumstance as the reason why fish need not be 

D 4 



56 BABEL. 

slaughtered.* Others suppose that Mmrod's arrow had 
struck a bird which was flying still higher than the 
eagles. When Nimrod, in the swell of triumph, once 
more reached the pinnacle of his tower, Allah caused 
it to fall in with such frightful noise, that all people 
were beside themselves from terror, and every one 
spoke in a different tongue. Since that period the 
languages of men vary, and, on account of the 
confusion arising from this circumstance, the capital 
of Nimrod was called Babel (the confusion). 

As soon, however, as Nimrod had recovered him- 
self, he pursued Abraham with an army which 
covered the space of twelve square miles. Allah 
then sent Gabriel unto Abraham to ask him by 
what creature he should send him deliverance? 
Abraham chose the fly ; and Allah said, " Verily, if 
he had not chosen the fly, an insect would have 
come to his aid, seventy of which are lighter than 
the wing of a fly." 

The exalted Allah then summoned the king of flies, 
and commanded him to march with his host against 
Nimrod. He then collected all the flies and gnats 
of the whole earth, and with them attacked Mmrod's 
men with such violence, that they were soon obliged 

* The laws of the Mahometans, and of the Jews especially, 
regulate scrupulously the mode in which clean animals are to 
be slain ; what part is to receive the mortal wound ; how it is 
to be inflicted ; the knife to be used ; and the formula of prayer 
to be uttered. But no such laws exist in regard to fish. — E. 2\ 



DEATH OF NIMROD. 57 

to take to flight, for they consumed their skin and 
bones and flesh, and picked the eyes out of their 
heads. Nimrod himself fled, and locked himself up 
in a thickly- walled tower ; but one of the flies rushed 
in with him, and flew round his face during seven 
days, without his being able to catch it, the fly return- 
ing again and again to his lip, and sucking it so long 
until it began to swell. It then flew up into his 
nose, and the more he endeavoured to get it out, the 
more deeply it pressed into it, until it came to the 
brain, which it began to devour. Then there re- 
mained no other means of relief to him than to run 
his head against the wall, or to have some one strike 
his forehead with a hammer. But the fly grew con- 
tinually larger until the fortieth day, when his head 
burst open, and the insect, which had grown to the size 
of a pigeon, flew out, and said to the dying Nimrod, 
who even now would not come to repentance, " Thus 
does Allah, whenever he pleases, permit the feeblest 
of his creatures to destroy the man who will not be- 
lieve in Him and in His messenger." The tower, in 
which Nimrod was, then tumbled in upon him, and 
he must roll about under its ruins until the day of 
the resurrection. 

After Nimrod's death, many persons whom the 
fear of the king had prevented, turned to the only 
God, and to Abraham his messenger. The first were 
his nephew Lot, the son of Haran, and Lot's sister 
Sarah, whom Abraham afterwards married. She 

D 5 



58 BEAUTY OF SARAH. 

bore a perfect resemblance to her mother Eve, to 
whom Allah had given two thirds of all beauty, 
while the whole human race have to be satisfied with 
the remaining third, and even of this quota Joseph 
alone obtained one third. 

Sarah was so beautiful that Abraham, who, in 
order to proclaim the true faith, was obliged to make 
many journeys to Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and 
Arabia, found it necessary to carry her with him 
in a chest. One day he was arrested on the banks 
of the Jordan by a publican, to whom he was obliged 
to give tithe of all that he carried with him. Abra- 
ham opened all his chests, but the one in which Sarah 
was confined ; and when the publican proceeded to 
search it too, Abraham said, " Suppose it to be filled 
with silks, and let me pay the tithe accordingly." But 
the officer commanded him to open it. Abraham 
begged him again to pass it unopened, and offered to 
give tithe as if it were filled with gold and jewels. 
Still the other insisted on his seeing the contents of 
the chest ; and, when he beheld Sarah, he was so daz- 
zled by her beauty, that he ran forthwith to the king, 
reporting what had happened. 

The king immediately summoned Abraham, and 
inquired of him, "Who is the maiden whom thou ear- 
nest with thee ? " Abraham, from fear of being put 
to death if he avowed the truth, replied, " She is my 
sister ! " At the same time he told no falsehood *, for 

* The learned reader must be struck with the strong like- 



HAGAR AND ISMAEL. 59 

in his mind he meant, " She is my sister in the faith." 
When the king heard this, he took her with him to 
his palace. Abraham stood full of despair before it, 
not knowing what to do, when Allah caused the 
walls of the palace to become transparent as glass, 
and Abraham saw how the king, as soon as he had 
seated himself with Sarah on a divan, desired to 
embrace her. But at that instant his hand withered, 
the palace began to shake, and threatened to fall. 
The king fell on the ground from dread and fright, 
and Sarah said to him, " Let me go, for I am the 
wife of Abraham." 

Pharaoh thereupon summoned Abraham, and re- 
proached him for his untruth. The latter then 
prayed for him, and Allah healed the king, who 
now gave Abraham many rich presents, and, among 
others, an Egyptian slave by the name of Hagar.* 
She bore him a son, whom he called Ismael. But as 
Sarah was barren, and the more jealous since the 
light of Mohamed already shone on Ismael's fore- 

ness existing between the moral of the Moslems and those 
of the Sanchez, the Escobars, the Tambourins, and the Molinas. 
The Bible says, indeed, " Abraham said to Pharaoh, ' She is my 
sister ;' " but it does not justify him by adding that he told no 
falsehood. — E. T. 

* The Midrash, fol. 21., says that Hagar was given as a slave 
to Abraham by her father, Pharaoh, who said, " My daughter 
had better be a slave in the house of Abraham than mistress in 
any other." Elimelech, in like manner, and for the same 
reason, gave his daughter as a bondmaid to Abraham, after he 
had seen the wonders which were done for Sarah's sake. 
» 6 



60 EAR- KINGS. 

head, she demanded of Abraham to put away Hagar 
and her son. He was undecided, until commanded 
by Allah to obey Sarah in all things. Yet he 
entreated her again not to cast off her bondmaid 
and her son. But this so exasperated her, that 
she declared she would not rest until her hands 
had been embrued in Hagar's blood. Then Abra- 
ham pierced Hagar's ear quickly, and drew a ring 
through it, so that Sarah was able to dip her hand 
in the blood of Hagar without bringing the latter 
into danger. 

From that time it became a custom among women 
to wear ear-rings. 

Sarah now suffered Hagar to remain yet a few years 
longer with her ; but when she had borne Isaac, and 
observed that Abraham loved him less than Ismael, 
her jealousy awoke afresh, and she now insisted on 
Hagar's removal. Abraham then went with her and 
Ismael on his way, and the angel Gabriel guided 
them into the Arabian desert, to the place where 
afterwards the holy temple of Mecca was built. This 
place had been dedicated to the worship of Allah 
even before Adam's birth.* For when Allah made 
known to the angels his resolve of creating man, and 

* The sanctity which the Moslem attaches to places is 
akin to the feeling in the church of the Pharisees before 
Christ, and of Rome at present. But the Saviour reproves 
it by those words, " Wherever two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," 
Matt, xviii.20.— E. T. 



THE KAABA. 61 

they said, " Wilt thou fill the earth jwith sinful crea- 
tures?" Allah was so wroth at their dissuasion, 
that the angels, to reconcile Him, walked, singing 
praises, seven times round His throne. Allah par- 
doned them, but said, " Build me forthwith, in 
a direct line downward to the earth, a temple, 
which the sinners may one day encompass, that they 
also may obtain mercy, even as ye have now encircled 
my throne, and been forgiven." Allah afterwards 
gave to Adam a diamond of Paradise, which is now 
called the black stone ; for it afterwards grew black 
by the unclean touch of the heathen, but will one 
day rise with eyes and a tongue, to bear testimony to 
those who have touched it in their pilgrimage.* This 
jewel was originally an angel, appointed to watch 
over Adam, that he might not eat of the forbidden 
tree; but, on account of his neglect, was changed 
into a stone. At the time of the flood Allah lifted up 
this temple into heaven ; yet the winds blew Noah's 
ark seven times round the spot where it had stood. 

After having accompanied Hagar and Ismael unto 
Mecca, Abraham returned again to Sarah, in Syria, 
leaving the former, at Gabriel's command, to them- 
selves, provided with a few dates and a bottle of water. 
But these provisions were soon exhausted, and the 
whole region was waste, arid, and uninhabited. When 

* The black stone of the Kaaba is to this day an object of 
great veneration with the Mussulmen, and every pilgrim visit- 
ing the temple kisses it repeatedly. — E. T. 



62 THE SETTLERS OF MECCA. 

Hagar and Ismael were suffering from hunger and 
thirst, the former ran seven times from Mount Susa to 
Marwa*, calling upon Allah for relief: the angel Ga- 
briel then appeared to her, and stamped upon the earth 
with his foot, and behold there started up a fountain, 
which is still known as the fountain of Semsem.f But 
at that time its waters were as sweet as honey and as 
nutritious as milk ; so that Hagar was unwilling again 
to leave these regions. 

After some time there came two Amalekites to 
her, who were seeking a camel which had strayed 
there, and, finding good water, they informed their 
tribe thereof, which had encamped a few hours west- 
ward. They settled with her, and Ismael grew up 
among them ; but Abraham visited him every month, 
riding on Barak his miraculous horse, which carried 
him in half a day from Syria to Mecca. 

When Ismael had attained the age of thirteen 
years, Abraham heard a voice in his dream, which 
cried, " Sacrifice Ismael thy son." 

The Jews, and even many Mussulmans do, indeed, 
maintain, that it was his son Isaac whom Abraham 
offered ; but the true believers reject this opinion, 
inasmuch as Mohamed called himself the son of two 
men who had been set apart as sacrifices, meaning 

* The pilgrims to Mecca still run seven times from Mount 
Susa to Marwa, frequently looking round and stooping down, to 
imitate Hagar when seeking for water. — E. T. 

f This fountain is within the Kaaba : its water is brackish, 
though somewhat less so than the other water of Mecca. — E. T. 



THE DEE AM. 63 

thereby Ismael and his own father, Abd Allah, 
whom his grandfather, Abdul Mattalib, intended to 
offer in fulfilment of a vow, but, by the decision of a 
priestess, redeemed with a hundred camels. 

When Abraham awoke, he was in doubt whether 
he should regard his dream as a Divine command, or 
as the instigation of Satan. But, when the same 
dream was yet twice repeated, he dared not to hesi- 
tate any longer, and therefore took a knife and a 
rope, and said to Ismael, " Follow me ! " 

When Iblis saw this, he thought within himself, 
" An act so well pleasing to Allah I must seek to 
prevent," and he assumed the form of a man, and, 
going to Hagar, said to her, " Knowest thou whither 
Abraham has gone with thy son ? " Hagar answered, 
" He has gone into the forest to cut wood." 

"It is false," replied Iblis; " he intends to slaughter 
thy son." 

" How is this possible ? " rejoined Hagar ; " does 
he not love him as much as I ? " 

"Yea," continued Iblis, "but he believes that 
Allah has commanded it." 

" If it be so," rejoined Hagar, " let him do what 
he believes pleasing to Allah." 

When Iblis could effect nothing with Hagar, he 
betook himself to Ismael, and said, " Knowest thou 
for what end this wood which thou hast gathered is 
to serve ? " 

Ismael replied, "It is for our use at home." 



64 THE TEMPTER. 

" No !" rejoined Iblis ; "thy father designs to offer 
thee as a sacrifice, because he dreamt that Allah had 
commanded him." 

"Well," replied Ismael, "if it be so, let him 
fulfil on me the will of Allah." - 

Iblis then turned to Abraham himself, and said, 
" Sheik, whither goest thou ? " 

" To cut wood." 

" For what purpose ? " 

Abraham was silent ; but Iblis continued, " I know 
thou designest to offer up thy son, because Iblis has 
suggested it to thee in a dream:" but at these words 
Abraham recognised Iblis, and flinging at him seven 
pebbles, a ceremony since observed by every pilgrim, 
he said, " Get thee gone, enemy of Allah ; I will act 
according to the will of my Lord." Satan went away 
enraged, but stepped yet twice more in a different 
form into Abraham's way, seeking to stagger his 
resolve. Abraham discovered him each time, and 
each time flung at him seven pebbles. * 



* The Midrash, p. 28., says, " Abraham left Sarah early in 
the morning, while she slept ; but Satan placed himself in his 
way as an aged man, and said, ' Whither goest thou ? ' 

" ' I desire to pray.' 

" ' But to what purpose are wood and knife ? ' 

" ' I may remain absent some days, and must needs prepare 
my food.' 

" ' Should a man like thee slay his son who was given him in 
old age ? how wilt thou answer for it in the day of judgment?' 

" ' God has commanded me.' 



THE SACRIFICE OF ISMAEL. 65 

When they came to Mina, upon the spot where 
Ismael was to be offered, the latter said to Abra- 
ham, " Father, bind me tightly, that I may not re- 
sist, and thrust back thy robe, that it may not be 
sprinkled with my blood, lest my mother mourn at 
the sight of it. Sharpen thy knife well, that it may 
kill me quickly and easily, for, after all, death is hard. 
When thou reachest home again, greet my mother, 
and take this robe to her as a memento." 

Abraham obeyed weepingly the will of his son, and 
was just on the point of slaying him, when the 
portals of heaven were opened, and the angels looked 
on, and cried, "Well does this man deserve to be 
called the friend of Allah ! " 

At this moment the Lord placed an invisible collar 
of copper round Ismael's neck, so that Abraham, 
spite of his utmost exertions, was unable to wound 

" He then presented himself to Isaac in the form of a youth, 
and said, ' Whither goest thou ? ' 

" ' To be instructed by my father in virtue and knowledge.' 

" ' During thy lifetime or after death ? for he verily designs 
to slay thee.' 

" ' It matters not, I shall follow him.' 

" He went to Sarah, and asked her, ' Where is thy husband ? ' 

" ' He has gone to his business ! ' 

" 'And thy son?' 

" * He is with him ! ' 

" ' Didst thou not resolve that he should not go beyond thy 
door alone ? ' 

" ' He must pray with his father.' 

" ' Thou shalt not see him again ! ' 

" ' The Lord do unto my son according to His will ! ' " 



66 THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. 

him. But when he put his knife to Ismael's neck 
a third time, he heard a voice, which cried, " Thou 
hast fulfilled the command which was imparted to thee 
in thy dream ! " 

At this call he raised his eyes, and Gabriel stood be- 
fore him with a fine horned ram, and said, " Slaughter 
this ram as the ransom of thy son." 

This ram was the same which Abel offered, and 
which in the mean time had pastured in Paradise.* 

The sacrifice over, Abraham returned to Syria, 
but Ismael remained with his mother among the 
Amalekites, of whom he took a wife. 

One day Abraham desired to visit him ; but Ismael 
was engaged in the chase, and his wife was alone at 
home. Abraham greeted her, but she did not return 
his salutation. He prayed her to admit him for the 
night, but she refused his prayer ; he then demanded 
something to eat and to drink, and she answered, " I 
have nothing but some impure water." Then Abra- 
ham left her, and said, " When thy husband returns 
greet him, and say, he must change the pillars of his 
house. When Ismael came home to inquire whether 
any one had been with her during his absence, she 

* Rabbi Elieser teaches : the ram came from the mountain. 
Rabbi Jehoshua : an angel brought it from Paradise, where it 
pastured under the tree of eternal life, and drank from the 
brook which flows beneath it. The ram diffused its perfume 
throughout the whole world. It was brought into Paradise on 
the evening of the sixth day of the creation. — Midrash, p. 28. 



HOSPITALITY. 67 

described Abraham, and told what he had enjoined 
upon her. By her description Ismael recognised his 
father, and his words he interpreted, that he should 
separate himself from his wife, which he soon did. 

Not long after this, the Djorhamides wandered from 
Southern Arabia to the regions of Mecca, and drove 
out the Amalekites, who by their vicious courses had 
called down on themselves the punishment of Allah. 
Ismael married the daughter of their king, and learned 
of them the Arabic tongue. This woman, too, Abra- 
ham once found alone, and, on his greeting her, she 
returned his salutation kindly, rose up before him, 
and bade him welcome. On his inquiring how it 
fared with her, she replied, "Well, my lord. We 
have much milk, good meat, and fresh water." 

" Have you any corn ? " inquired Abraham. 

" We shall obtain that too, by Allah's will. But 
we do not miss it. Only alight, and come in ! " 

" Allah bless you ! " said Abraham, " but I cannot 
tarry ; " for he had given a promise to Sarah not to 
enter Hagar's house. 

" Suffer me at least to wash thy feet," said the 
wife of Ismael, " for thou art indeed covered with 
dust." 

Abraham then placed first his right foot * and then 

* This legend, which has reference to Ismael, and which it 
might be supposed was of Arabic origin, and invented to account 
for the sanctity of the second curious stone of the Kaaba, is 
found in the Midrash, p. 27. : — 



68 THE FOOT-PKINT. 

his left upon a stone which lay before Ismael's house, 
and suffered himself to be washed. This stone was 
afterwards employed in the temple, and the prints of 
Abraham's feet are visible upon it to this day. 

After she had washed him, Abraham said, " When 
Ismael returns, tell him to strengthen the pillars 
of his house ! " 

As soon as Ismael came home, his wife related to 

" Ismael married a wife of the daughters of Moab, and her 
name was Asia. After three years Abraham went to visit his 
son, having sworn previously to Sarah not to alight from his 
camel. He came towards noon to Ismael's dwelling, in which 
his wife was alone. 

" 'Where is Ismael ? ' 

" ' He is gone into the desert with his mother to gather dates 
and some other fruits.' 

" * Give me a little bread and water, for I am fatigued with 
travelling through the wilderness.' 

" ' I have neither bread nor water.' 

" ' When Ismael returns home tell him that he change the 
door-posts of his house, for they are not worthy of him.' 

" As soon as Ismael came, and she reported all that had hap- 
pened, he understood what Abraham had meant, and sent her 
away. 

" Hagar then brought him a wife from her father's house : 
her name was Fatima. 

" After three years Abraham visited his son again, after having 
again sworn to Sarah that he would not alight at his house. 

" He arrived this time too at Ismael's dwelling towards noon, 
and found Fatima quite alone. But she brought him immedi- 
ately all that he desired. Then Abraham prayed for Ismael to 
the Lord, and his house was filled with gold and goods. 

" When Ismael returned, and learned from Fatima what had 
happened, he rejoiced greatly, and knew that Abraham's parental 
love for him was not yet extinct." — Midrash, p. 28. 



THE KAABA. 69 

him what had happened to her with a stranger, and 
what message he had left. 

Ismael inquired of his appearance ; and when, from 
her answers, he recognised who it was, he rejoiced 
greatly, and said, " It was my father Abraham, the 
friend of Allah, who was doubtless well satisfied with 
thy reception, for his words signify nothing else than 
that I should bind thee more closely to me." 

When Abraham was a hundred and ten years old, 
Allah commanded him in a dream to follow after the 
Sakinah ; that is, a zephyr with two heads and two 
wings. 

Abraham obeyed, and journeyed after the wind, 
which was changed into a r cloud, at Mecca, on the 
spot where the temple still stands. A voice then 
called to him, " Build me a temple on the spot where 
the cloud is resting." 

Abraham began to dig up the earth, and discovered 
the foundation-stone which Adam had laid. He then 
commanded Ismael to bring the other stones required 
for the building. But the black stone, which since 
the flood had been concealed in heaven, or, according 
to the opinion of some of the learned, on Mount Abu 
Kubeis, the angel Gabriel brought himself. This 
stone was even at that time so white and brilliant, 
that it illuminated during the night the whole sacred 
region belonging to Mecca. 

One day, while Abraham was engaged with 
Ismael in the building of the temple, there came to 



70 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

him Alexander the Great, and asked what he was 
building, and when Abraham told him it was a 
temple to the one only God, in whom he believed, 
Alexander acknowledged him as the messenger of 
Allah, and encompassed the temple seven times on 
foot. 

With regard to this Alexander, the opinions of 
the learned vary. Some believe him to have been 
a Greek, and maintain that he governed the whole 
world; first, like Mmrod before him, as an unbeliever, 
and then like Solomon after him, as a believer. 

Alexander was the lord of light and darkness: 
when he went out with his army the light was before 
him, and behind him was the darkness, so that he was 
secure against all ambuscades, and by means of a mi- 
raculous white and black standard, he had also the 
power to transform the clearest day into midnight dark- 
ness, or black night into noon-day, just as he unfurled 
the one or the other. Thus he was unconquerable, 
since he rendered his troops invisible at his pleasure, 
and came down suddenly upon his foes. He journeyed 
through the whole world in quest of the fountain of 
eternal life, of which, as his sacred books taught 
him, a descendant of Sam (Shem) was to drink, and 
become immortal. But his vizier, Al-kidhr, anti- 
cipated him, and drank of a fountain in the furthest 
west, thus obtaining eternal youth ; and when Alex- 
ander came it was already dried up, for, according to 
the Divine decree, it had been created for one man 



ALEXANDER THE. GREAT. 71 

only. His surname, the Two-cornered, he obtained, ac- 
cording to some, because he had wandered through the 
whole earth unto her two corners in the east and west ; 
but according to others, because he wore two locks of 
hair which resembled horns ; and, according to a third 
opinion, his crown had two golden horns, to designate 
his dominion over the empires of the Greeks and 
Persians. But lastly, it is maintained by many, that 
one day, in a dream, he found himself so close to the 
sun that he was able to seize him at his two ends in 
the east and west, and was therefore tauntingly called 
the Two-cornered. 

The learned are similarly divided respecting the 
time in which he lived, his birthplace, parentage, 
and residence. Most of them, however, believe that 
there were two sovereigns of this name among the 
kings of antiquity ; the elder of these, who is spoken 
of in the Koran, was a descendant of Ham, and con- 
temporary of Abraham, and journeyed with Al-kidhr 
through the whole earth in search of the fountain of 
eternal life, and was commissioned by Allah to shut 
up behind an indestructible wall the wild nations of 
Jajug and Majug, lest they should have extirpated 
all the other inhabitants of the world. The younger 
Alexander was the son of Philip the Greek, one of 
the descendants of Japhet, and a disciple of the wise 
Aristotle at Athens. 

But let us return to Abraham, who, after his inter- 
view with Alexander and Al-kidhr, continued the 



72 PILGRIMAGE. 

building of the temple until it had attained a height 
of nine, a breadth of thirty, and a depth of twenty- 
two cubits. He then ascended the Mount Abu 
Kubeis, and cried, " Oh, ye inhabitants of the earth, 
Allah commands you to make a pilgrimage to this 
holy temple. Let his commandment be obeyed ! " 

Allah caused Abraham's voice to be heard by all 
men both living and uncreated; and all, even the 
children still in their mothers' womb, cried with one 
voice, " We obey thy commandment, O Allah ! " 
Abraham, together with the pilgrims, then performed 
those ceremonies which are yet observed to this day, 
appointed Ismael as the lord of the Kaaba, and 
returned to his son Isaac in Palestine. 

When the latter attained the age of manhood, 
Abraham's beard became grey, which astonished 
him not a little, since no man before him had ever 
turned grey.* But Allah had performed this won- 
der that Abraham might be distinguished from 
Isaac. For as he was a hundred years old when 
Sarah bore Isaac, the people of Palestine derided 

* When Sarah weaned her son, Abraham made a feast. Then 
said the heathen, " Behold this aged couple, who have taken up 
a child from the streets, pretending it was their own, and to 
obtain credit more easily, have given a feast in its honour." 
But the Lord made Isaac so strikingly to resemble, &c. Also, 
in p. 15., among the wonders which were done in honour of 
Abraham, is enumerated his turning grey. And again, 
p. 30., " Before Abraham there was no special mark of old age," 
&c. — Midrash, pp. 27. 15. 30. 



DEATH OF ABRAHAM. 73 

him, and doubted of Sarah's innocence : but Allah 
gave to Isaac such a perfect resemblance of his 
father, that every one who saw him was convinced 
of Sarah's conjugal fidelity. But, to prevent their 
being mistaken for each other, Allah caused grey 
hairs to grow on Abraham as a mark of distinction ; 
and it is only since that time that the hair loses 
its dark colour in old age. When Abraham had 
attained to the age of two hundred, or, as some main- 
tain, of a hundred and five-and-seventy years, Allah 
sent to him the Angel of Death in the form of an aged 
man. Abraham invited him to a meal ; but the Angel 
of Death trembled so much, that before he could put 
a morsel into his mouth he besmeared therewith his 
forehead, eyes, and nose. Abraham then inquired, 
"Why tremblest thou thus? " 

" From age," replied the Angel of Death. 

"How old art thou?" 

" One year older than thyself ! " 

Abraham lifted up his eyes to heaven, and ex- 
claimed, " Allah ! take my soul to thee before I 
fall into such a state ! " 

" In what manner wouldest thou like to die, friend 
of Allah ? " inquired the Angel of Death. 

" I should like to breathe out my life at the mo- 
ment when I fall down before Allah in prayer." 

The angel remained with Abraham until he fell 
down in prayer, and then put an end to his life. 

Abraham was buried by his son Isaac, near Sarah, 

E 



74 THE SEPULCHRE OP CHALIL. 

In the cave of Hebron. For many ages the Jews 
visited this cave, in which also Isaac and Jacob were 
afterwards buried. The Christians subsequently built 
a church over it, which was changed into a mosque 
when Allah gave this country unto the Mussulmen. 
But Hebron was called Kirjath Abraham (the city 
of Abraham), or simply Chalil (Friend), and is 
known by that name unto this day. 



75 



JOSEPH. 

Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son 
of Abraham, was from his childhood the darling of 
his father ; and as he lived with an aunt at a distance 
from his home, Jacob's constant longing for him 
added much to the fervour of his parental love. 
When he was only six years of age, his aunt be- 
came so much attached to him, that, in order to 
prevent her ever being obliged to part with him, she 
invented the following expedient. She took the 
family girdle which she, being the first-born, had 
inherited from Abraham through Isaac (it was the 
same which Abraham wore on his loins when thrown 
into the pile), — girded Joseph with it, and accused 
him of theft, so that, according to the laws of 
those days, he became her slave for life. It was not 
until after her death that he returned again to 
the house of his father, and was naturally treated 
by him with greater care and tenderness than his 
elder brothers. Moreover, he was his eldest son by 
Rachael, the only one of his wives whom he had truly 
loved. 

E 2 



76 DREAMS. 

One morning Joseph told his father that he had seen 
in a dream how he and his brothers had each set a twig 
in the earth, and how those of his brothers withered, 
while his began to bloom, and shaded theirs with its 
foliage and blossoms. Jacob was so absorbed with the 
meaning of this dream, that he left a poor man who 
stood before him holding out his hand for alms unob- 
served, and allowed him to depart without a gift. It 
was this transgression that brought on him all those 
sufferings by which he was soon to be visited. On the 
following morning Joseph again related to his father : 
" I have dreamt that the sun, moon, and the eleven 
stars, bowed down to me." Jacob could now no longer 
remain in doubt as to the meaning of these dreams ; he 
perceived in them Joseph's future greatness, but re- 
commended him not to speak of them to his brothers, 
who had long since envied him for the greater tender- 
ness of his father. But although Jacob knew the senti- 
ments of his sons towards Joseph, yet was he one day 
persuaded by them to send him with them to the pas- 
ture. Scarcely were they alone in the open field, 
when they began to beat and to mock him. He 
would have sunk under their ill treatment, if Allah 
had not filled the heart of his brother Judah with 
compassion towards him. Judah said, " Do not kill 
your brother ; if we but regain the undivided love of 
our father, we have attained our object. Let us there- 
fore cast him into a pit, till a caravan passes, and then 
sell him as a slave." Judah's advice was taken, and 



ENVY. 77 

Joseph, stripped of his garments, was cast into a 
pit, where he must have been drowned, had not Allah 
caused the angel Gabriel to place a large stone under 
his feet, Gabriel at the same time was instructed to 
illumine the pit by a jewel, and to cry, "Joseph, the 
time will come when thou shalt call thy brothers to 
account, without their suspecting it." The brothers 
then left the pit, but before returning home they 
slaughtered a lamb, and besmeared Joseph's upper 
garment with its blood, which cannot be distinguished 
from that of man. They then said to their father, 
" While we were engaged in our occupations, there 
came a wolf and tore Joseph, who had remained with 
the stores ; and, on seeking him afterwards, we found 
this upper garment, which we recognised as his." 

" How," said Jacob, " shall I believe that a wolf has 
devoured my son, while there is not a single rent in 
this garment?" (for the brothers had forgotten likewise 
to damage the garment.) "Besides," he added, " there 
has no wolf been seen in these regions for many years." 

" We imagined, indeed, that thou wouldst not give 
credence to our words," said one of his sons; " but let 
us search for the wolf," he continued, turning to his 
brothers, "in order to convince our father of the 
truth of our statement." 

They then provided themselves with all kinds of 
implements of the chase, and scoured the whole 
region round about, until they at last found a large 

33 3 



78 THE WOLF. 

wolf, which they caught alive, and accused it before 
Jacob as Joseph's murderer; but Allah opened the 
mouth of the wolf, and he said,' — 

" Believe not, O son of Isaac ! the accusation of 
thy envious sons. I am a wolf from a foreign coun- 
try, and have longbeen wandering about to seek my 
young one, which one morning I missed on waking. 
How should I, who am mourning the loss of a wild 
beast, bereave the prophet of Allah of his son ? " 

Jacob then delivered the wolf from the hands 
of his sons, and sent them away again, so as not 
to have their faces before his eyes; only Benjamin, 
his youngest son, he kept with him. The ten 
brothers thereupon returned to the pit in which 
they had left Joseph, and arrived at the very moment 
when he was freed by some Bedouins, who on their 
march from Madjan to Egypt had sought to draw 
water from this pit, but had brought up Joseph instead, 
who clung to their bucket. w This youth," said Judah 
to the leader of the caravan, ere Joseph could utter a 
word, " is our slave, whom we have confined in this 
pit on account of his disobedience. If you will take 
him with you to Egypt, and sell him there, you may 
buy him from us at a moderate rate." The leader 
of the caravan was greatly rejoiced at this offer ; for 
he knew well that so beautiful a youth would bring 
him much gain. He bought him therefore for a few 
drachms ; and Joseph did not break silence, for he 
feared that his brothers might put him to death if he 



potiphar's wife. 79 

contradicted them. Trusting in Allah, he journeyed 
quietly with the Bedouins until he was passing the 
grave of his mother. There his grief overpowered 
him, and, casting himself on the ground, he wept and 
prayed. The leader of the caravan struck him, and 
would have dragged him away by force, when sud- 
denly a black cloud overspread the sky, so that he 
started back affrighted, and prayed Joseph so long to 
forgive him, till the darkness again disappeared. 

The sun was declining when the caravan entered the 
capital of Egypt, which was then governed by Bajjan, 
a descendant of the Amalekites. But Joseph's face 
shone brighter than the noonday sun; and the 
singular light which it diffused attracted all the 
maidens and matrons to their windows and terraces. 
On the following day he was exposed for sale before 
the royal palace. The richest women of the city 
sent their husbands and guardians to buy him; 
but they were outbidden by Potiphar, the treasurer 
of the king, who was childless, and designed to 
adopt Joseph as his son. Zuleicha, the wife of Po- 
tiphar, received Joseph kindly, and gave him new 
robes ; she likewise appointed him a separate summer- 
house for his abode, because he refused to eat with 
the Egyptians, preferring to live on herbs and fruits. 
Joseph lived six years as Potiphar's gardener, and, 
although Zuleicha loved him passionately since his first 
entrance into her house, she conquered her feelings, 
and was satisfied to regard him from her kiosk as he 

E 4 



80 ZULEICHA. 

performed his labours in the garden. But in the 
seventh year Zuleicha became love-sick — her cheeks 
grew pale, her gaze was lifeless, her form was bent, 
and her whole body consumed away. When no 
physician was able to heal her, her nurse said one 
day, " Zuleicha, confess that it is not thy body but 
thy soul which suffers in secret; sorrow is preying 
on thy health. Confide in thy nurse, who has fed 
thee with her own substance, and fostered thee since 
thy infancy like a mother. My advice may, per- 
haps, be useful." 

Zuleicha then threw herself into the arms of her 
aged friend, and avowed her love to Joseph, and her 
fruitless endeavours during six years to conquer it. 

" Be of-good cheer," said the matron to Zuleicha, 
"thou hast done more than others of thy sex, and art 
therefore excusable. Be thyself again; eat, drink, 
dress to advantage, take thy bath, that thy former 
beauty return ; then shall Joseph's love surely exceed 
thy own. Besides, is he not thy slave ? and from mere 
habit of obedience he will gratify all thy wishes." 

Zuleicha followed her advice. In a short time she 
was as blooming and healthful as before; for she 
thought that only a favourable opportunity was 
needed to crown her wishes with success. 

But Joseph resisted all her allurements, and 
when she at length found that all her efforts to lead 
him astray were in vain, she accused him before 
her husband Potiphar, who threw him into prison : 



THE PPvISON. 81 

but Allah, who knew his innocence, changed the dark 
cell in which he was confined to a bright and cheer- 
ful abode. He also commanded a fountain to spring 
up in the midst thereof, and a tree rose at his door 
which gave him shade and pleasant fruit. 

Joseph, who was soon universally known and feared 
for his wisdom and the skill which he possessed to in- 
terpret dreams, had not been long in prison when the 
following circumstance occurred : — The king of 
the Greeks, who was then at war with Egypt, sent 
an ambassador to Rajjan, ostensibly with the design 
of negotiating for peace, but in reality only to seek 
the means of slaying this heroic king. The am- 
bassador addressed himself to a Grecian matron who 
had for many years lived in Egypt, and asked her 
advice. " I know of no better means," said the 
Grecian to her countryman, " than to bribe either the 
king's chief cook or his butler to poison him." The 
ambassador made the acquaintance of them both, but, 
finding the chief cook the most tractable, he culti- 
vated a closer intimacy with him, until he succeeded 
at last, by means of a few talents of gold, in deter- 
mining him to poison the king. 

As soon as he supposed that he had secured the ob- 
ject of his mission, he prepared for his departure, but 
previously visited his countrywoman, with the inten- 
tion of communicating to her the chief cook's promise. 
But as she was not alone, he could merely say, that he 
had every reason to be gratified with his success. 



82 THE SINGULAR INTERPRETATION, 

These words of the ambassador soon reached the 
king's ears ; and as they could not be referred to 
his ostensible mission, since the negotiations for peace, 
on account of which he alleged that he had come, were 
entirely broken off, and the war had already recom- 
menced, some secret or other was suspected. The 
Grecian was led before the king, and tortured, until 
she confessed all that she knew, and as Rajjan did not 
know which of them was guilty, he commanded that 
both the chief cook and butler should meanwhile be put 
into the same prison where Joseph was languishing. 
One morning they came to him, and said, " We have 
heard of thy skill in the interpretation of dreams ; tell 
us, we pray thee, what we may expect from our dreams 
of last night." The butler then related that he had 
pressed out grapes, and presented the wine to the 
king. But the chief cook said that he had carried 
meats in a basket in his hand, when the birds came 
and devoured the best of them. Joseph exhorted them 
first of all to faith in one God ; and then foretold the 
butler's restoration to his former office, but to the 
chief cook he predicted the gallows. As soon as he 
finished his speech both of them burst out in laugh- 
ter, and derided him, for they had not dreamt at 
all, and merely meant to put his skill to the test. But 
Joseph said to them, " Whether your dreams have been 
real or invented, I cannot say ; but what I have pro- 
phesied is the judgment of Allah, which cannot be 
turned aside." He was not mistaken. The spies of the 
king soon found out that the Greek ambassador had 



RELEASE OF JOSEPH. 83 

had frequent interviews with the chief cook, while he 
had seen the butler but once ; the former was therefore 
condemned to death, but the latter reinstated in his 
office. 

On leaving the prison, Joseph entreated the 
butler to remember him, and to obtain his free- 
dom from the king. The butler did not remem- 
ber him ; but the tree before his door withered, 
and his fountain was dried up, because, instead 
of trusting in Allah, he had relied upon the 
help of a feeble man.* He was seven years in 
prison, when one morning he saw the butler again. 
He came to lead him before the king, who had had a 
dream which no one was able to interpret. But 
Joseph refused to appear, unless he had first con- 
vinced the king of his innocence. He then related 
the cause of his imprisonment to the butler, who 
brought his answer to the king, and the latter imme- 
diately summoned Zuleicha and her friends. They 
confessed that they had falsely accused Joseph. Raj- 
jan then sent a writing, which not only restored him 
to liberty, but even declared the imprisonment which 
he had endured to have been unjust, and the result of 
a calumnious charge. f 

* The Midrash says, " Joseph remained yet two years in 
prison, because he had asked the chief butler to remember 
him." 

f "Potiphar's wife looked so ill, that her friends inquired what 
she complained of. She related her adventure with Joseph, 
e 6 



84 Joseph's elevation. 

Joseph then put on the robes which Rajjan had 
sent him, and was conducted to the royal palace, 
where the king had assembled about him all the 
nobles, the priests, the astrologers, and soothsayers 
of Egypt. 

■ e I saw in my dream," said the king, as soon as 
Joseph was near him, " seven lean kine, which de- 
voured seven fat ones ; and seven blasted ears, which 
consumed seven rank and full ones. Canst thou tell 
me what this dream signifies ? " 

Joseph replied, " Allah will grant to thy kingdom 
seven plentiful years, which shall be succeeded by 
seven years of famine. Be therefore provident, and 
during the first seven years let as much grain be col- 
lected and stored up as shall be required for the 
maintenance of thy subjects during the seven years 
that shall follow." 

This interpretation pleased the king so well, that 
he made Joseph the high steward of his dominions in 
Potiphar's stead. 

He now travelled through the country buying the 
grain which, on account of the great abundance, was 
sold on most moderate terms, and built storehouses 
every where, but especially in the capital. One 

and they said, ' Accuse him before thy husband, that he may 
be put in prison.' She entreated her friends to accuse him 
likewise to their husbands. They did so ; and their husbands 
came to Potiphar complaining of Joseph's audacious demeanour 
towards their wives," &c. — Midrash, p. 45. 



FAMINE IN EGYPT. 85 

day, while riding out to inspect a granary beyond 
the city, he observed a beggar in the street, whose 
whole appearance, though most distressing, bore the 
distinct traces of former greatness. Joseph ap- 
proached her compassionately, and held out to her 
a handful of gold. But she refused, and said, sob- 
bing aloud, " Great prophet of Allah, I am unworthy 
of thy gift, although my transgression has been the 
stepping-stone to thy present fortune." 

At these words, Joseph regarded her more closely, 
and behold it was Zuleicha, the wife of his lord. 
He inquired after her husband, and was told that he 
had died of sorrow and poverty soon after his depo- 
sition. 

On hearing this, Joseph led Zuleicha to a relative 
of the king, where she was treated like a sister, and 
she soon appeared to him as blooming and youthful 
as at the time of his entrance into her house. He 
asked her hand from the king, and married her 
with his permission, and she bore him two sons 
before the frightful years of famine, during which 
the Egyptians were obliged to sell to Raj j an, first 
their gold, their jewellery, and other costly things, 
for corn ; then their estates and slaves, and at last 
their own persons, their wives and children. 

Yet not only in Egypt, but even in the adjacent 
countries, a great famine prevailed. 

In the land of Canaan, too, there was no more corn 



86 THE SPIES. 

to be found, and Jacob was forced to send all his 
sons save Benjamin to buy provisions in Egypt. 
He recommended them to enter the capital by the ten 
different gates, so as not to attract the evil eye by 
the beauty of their appearance, and to avoid public 
attention.* 

Joseph recognised his brothers, and called them 
spies, because they had come to him separately, 
though, according to their own confession, they were 
brothers. But when, to exculpate themselves, they 
explained to him the peculiar circumstances of their 
family, and, to justify their father's carefulness, 
they spoke of a lost brother, Joseph grew so angry, 
that he refused them the desired provisions, and de- 
manded of them to bring down their brother Ben- 
jamin with them, and to be certain of their return, 
he detained one of them as a hostage. 

A few weeks after they returned again with Ben- 
jamin. 

* Jacob said to his sons, " Do not enter by one gate, because 
of the evil eye." Joseph expected his brothers, and therefore 
commanded the keepers of the gates to report every day the 
names of arriving strangers. One day the first keeper brought 
him the name of Reuben ; the second the name of Simeon ; and 
so on, until he had received the name of Asher, Jacob's tenth 
son. He then commanded all the storehouses but one to be 
closed, and said to the keeper of that, " If such and such men 
come, let them be taken and brought before me." 

" You are spies," said he to his brothers when they stood be- 
fore him, " otherwise you would have entered the city by the 
same gate." — Midrash, pp. 46, 47. 



BENJAMIN. 87 

Jacob was indeed unwilling to let his youngest 
son depart, for lie feared lest a misfortune similar to 
that of Joseph's would befall him: yet, to escape 
from famine, he was obliged to yield at last. 

Joseph now directed that the corn which they had 
desired should be measured to them, but gave orders 
to his steward to conceal a silver cup in Benjamin's 
sack, to seize them as thieves at the gate of the city, 
and to lead them back to his palace. 

" What punishment," demanded Joseph of the 
brethren, " is due to him that has stolen my cup ? " 

" Let him be thy slave," replied the sons of Jacob, 
certain that none of them was capable of committing 
so disgraceful an act. But when their sacks were 
opened, and the cup was found in Benjamin's, they 
cried to him, " Woe to thee ! what hast thou done ? 
Why hast thou followed the example of thy lost 
brother, who stole the idol of Laban his grandfather, 
and the girdle of his aunt ? " 

Still, as they had sworn to their father not to step 
before his face without Benjamin, they prayed Joseph 
to keep one of their number as his slave in Benjamin's 
stead. But Joseph insisted on retaining Benjamin, and 
Beuben said therefore to his brothers, " Journey to 
our father and tell him all that has befallen us ; but I, 
who am the eldest of you, and have vowed unto him 
to sacrifice my life rather than to return without Benja- 
min, will remain here until he himself shall recall me. 
He will probably acknowledge that such an accident 



88 JACOB LOSES HIS SIGHT. 

could not have been foreseen, and that if our brother 
had been known to us as a thief, we should not 
have pledged ourselves for him." 

But Jacob would not credit the story of his return- 
ing sons, and feared that they had now acted towards 
Benjamin as they had formerly done towards Joseph. 
He burst into tears, and wept till the light of his 
eyes was extinguished : his grief for Joseph also 
revived afresh, though he had never ceased to trust 
to the fulfilment of his dream. 

But now the brothers returned the third time into 
Egypt, determined to free Benjamin by force, for 
they were so powerful, that they could engage single- 
handed with whole hosts of warriors. Judah espe- 
cially, when excited to wrath, would roar like a lion, 
and kill the strongest men with his voice*; nor 
could he be pacified until one of his kinsmen touched 
the prickly bunch of hair which, on such occasions, 
protruded from his neck. 

* " When Joseph would have shut up Simeon, his brothers 
offered him their assistance, but he declined it. Joseph com- 
manded seventy valiant men to put him in chains ; but when 
they approached him, Simeon roared so loud that the seventy fell 
down at his feet and broke their teeth. Joseph said to his son 
Manasseh, who was standing at his side, ' Chain thou him.' 
Manasseh struck him a single blow, and bound him instantly ; 
so that Simeon exclaimed, * Certainly this was the blow of a 
kinsman ! ' Again, when Joseph sent Benjamin to prison, Judah 
cried so loud, that Chushim, the son of Dan, heard him in 
Canaan, and responded. Joseph feared for his life, for Judah 
was so enraged, that he wept blood. Some say Judah wore 



THE RECOGNITION. 89 

However, they once more endeavoured by entreaty 
to move Joseph to set Benjamin free ; but when they 
spoke of their father's love for him he inquired, 
" What, then, has become of Joseph?" 

They said, " A wolf has devoured him." 

But Joseph took his cup into his hand, and feign- 
ing to prophesy out of it, cried, " It is false ; you 
have sold him." 

When they denied this charge, Joseph told Zuleicha 
to give him the parchment which Judah had with 
his own hand given to the Bedouin when they sold 
him ; and he showed it to them. 

" We had a slave whose name was Joseph," said 
Judah ; and he grew so enraged that he was on the 
point of roaring aloud : but his voice failed him, for 
Joseph had beckoned to his son Ephraim to touch his 
bunch of hair, which was so long that it nearly trailed 
on the ground. When his brothers saw this, there 
remained no doubt to them of their standing before 
Joseph, for they could have no other kinsman in 
Egypt. They therefore fell down before him and 
cried, " Thou art our brother Joseph ; forgive us ! " 

"You have nothing to fear from me," replied Joseph, 
" and Allah, the merciful, will also be gracious and 
pardon you. But rise, and go up quickly to our 

five garments, one over the other ; but when he was angry his 
heart swelled so much that his five garments burst open. Joseph 
also cried so terribly, that one of the pillars of his house fell in, 
and was changed into sand. Then Judah said, ' He is valiant, 
like one of us.' " — Midrash, pp. 46, 47. 



90 JOSEPH DESIEES TO DIE A MOSLEM. 

father, and bring him hither. Take my garment 
with you ; cast it over his face, and his blindness will 
pass away." 

Scarcely had they left the capital of Egypt, 
when the wind carried the fragrance of Joseph's 
garment to their father, and when Judah, who was 
hastening in advance of his brothers, gave it to him, 
his eyes were opened again.* They now departed 
together for Egypt. Joseph came out to meet them, 
and, having embraced his father, exclaimed, "Lord, 
thou hast now fulfilled my dreams, and given me 
great power ! Creator of heaven and earth, be thou 
my support in this world and the future ! Let me 
die the death of a Moslem, and be gathered to the 
rest of the pious !" 

Neither Jacob nor Joseph left Egypt any more ; 
and both ordained in their testaments, that they 
should be buried in Canaan by the side of Abraham, 
which was also done. May the peace of Allah be 
with them! 

* The Jewish legend relates, that when the brothers learned 
Joseph's safety, they were unwilling to communicate it to their 
father, fearing the violent effects of sudden joy. 

But the daughter of Asher, Jacob's grandchild, took her harp 
and sung to him the story of Joseph's life and greatness ; and 
her beautiful music calmed his spirit. Jacob blessed her, and 
she was taken into Paradise without having tasted death.— E. T. 



91 



MOSES AND AAEON. 

When the time had come in which Allah again 
designed to send a prophet on the earth, Pharaoh, the 
king of Egypt, had three dreams in one night. In his 
first dream he heard a voice which called, " Pharaoh, 
repent ! The end of thy dominion is at hand, for a 
youth of a foreign tribe shall humble thee and thy 
people before the whole world." The king awoke, 
disturbed by his dream, but after a short time he fell 
asleep again, and there appeared to him a lion, which 
threatened to tear a man in pieces. The man was only 
armed with a rod, but stood still calmly until the 
lion rushed on him, when he struck it a single blow 
with his rod, and flung it dead into the Nile. The 
king awoke, more disturbed than before, and was only 
able to sleep again towards morning: but scarcely 
had he closed his eyes, when he saw Asia, his virtu- 
ous wife, riding through the air on a winged horse. 
The horse flew towards heaven ; but she cried to him 
a last farewell, whereupon the earth split open under 
his feet, and swallowed him up. Pharaoh sprung up 
from his couch as soon as he awoke, and summoned 
Haman, his vizier, commanding him to call together 



92 PHARAOH AND HAMAN. 

immediately all the magicians, the soothsayers, and 
astrologers of his capital. When they, many thou- 
sands in number, were assembled in the largest hall 
of the royal palace, Pharaoh ascended the throne, 
and told his dreams with a tremulous voice ; but, al- 
though their interpretation was clear to every one in 
the whole assembly, no one ventured to avow the 
truth unto the king. Yet the latter divining from 
their ghastly looks what was passing within them, 
commanded the chief of the astrologers not to conceal 
any thing, and assured him beforehand of his grace, 
though he should predict the worst. 

" Most mighty king ! " said the chief of the astro- 
logers, a man of nine-and-ninety years of age, whose 
silvery beard reached down to his breast, " it never 
was so difficult to thy servant to obey thy commands 
as at the present moment, when I am forced to predict 
to thee the greatest calamity. One of thy slaves of 
the daughters of Israel will bear a son, or has per- 
haps already born him, who shall hurl thee and 
thy people into the lowest abyss." At these words 
Pharaoh began to weep aloud : he tore his crown from 
his head, rent his robes, and struck his breast and face 
with clenched fists. All who were present wept with 
him ; yet no one presumed to speak a word of con- 
solation. At last Haman, the vizier, stepped forward 
and said, " Great king, my fidelity and attachment are 
known to thee. Pardon, therefore, thy slave, if he has 
the boldness to blame thy dejection and to suggest a 



THE MASSACRE, 93 

plan which will frustrate the fulfilment of thy visions. 
As yet the power is in thy hand, and, if thou wilt but 
use it unsparingly, so shalt thou* put to shame all the 
interpreters of thy dream. Let all the children that 
are born this year, and all women that are with child, 
be immediately put to death, and thou mayest defy the 
apprehended peril."* Pharaoh followed this cruel 
counsel. Seven thousand children of one year and 
under were strangled forthwith, and as many women 
with child thrown into the Nile.f 

One night, when Amram, an Israelite, who was one 
of Pharaoh's viziers, was as usual in attendance on the 
king, the angel Gabriel appeared to him bearing on 

* "Here the Mussulman legend differs from the Tal- 
mud, according to which Bileam gave this counsel. Job was 
silent ; and Jethro, the king's third counsellor, endeavoured to 
dissuade the king from violence. Bileam was therefore de- 
stroyed by the Israelites. Job was led into temptation, and 
suffered greatly for his silence ; but Jethro, who, on account of 
his clemency, was forced to flee into Midian, was rewarded by 
becoming the father-in-law of Moses." — Midrash> p. 52. 

| "In the year 130, after the settlement of the Israelites in 
Egypt, Pharaoh dreamt of an aged man who was holding a 
balance in his right hand. In one of its scales he placed all the 
sages and nobles of Egypt, and a little lamb in the other ; and it 
outweighed them all. 

" Pharaoh was amazed at the weight of the lamb, and told his 
dream on the following morning to his attendants. They were 
terrified ; and one of them said, " This dream forbodes a great 
affliction which one of the children of Israel will bring upon 
Egypt. If it please the king, let us issue a royal edict, com- 
manding every male child of Hebrew parents to be slain at its 
birth. The king did as he was advised. " — Midrash, p. 51. 



94 THE ASTROLOGER. 

one of his wings Johabed, Amram's wife, the daugh- 
ter of Jaser. He laid her down near Pharaoh, who 
was sunk in a deep sleep, and snored like a slaughtered 
bull ; and Gabriel said to Amram, " The hour is come 
when the messenger of Allah shall appear!" He 
vanished after having spoken these words, and left 
Johabed with Amram until the rising of the morning 
star. Then he carried her back on his wings to her 
dwelling before Pharaoh awoke. 

That night the king had the same dreams again 
which had so much disturbed him before. 

As soon as he awoke he summoned Amram, and 
again commanded him to convene the interpreters of 
dreams. But he had scarcely uttered the word, 
when the chief of the astrologers begged for admit- 
tance. Pharaoh welcomed him, and inquired what 
had led him so early to the palace ? 

" Regard for thy throne and for thy life," an- 
swered the astrologer. " I read last night in the 
stars that the lad who shall one day deprive thee of 
life and empire has been conceived. I could there- 
fore scarcely await the morning star to inform thee 
of this sad occurrence. Possibly thou mayest suc- 
ceed in discovering the man who, notwithstanding thy 
prohibition and thy sage precautions, has found 
means of frustrating thy design." 

Pharaoh was the rather disposed to credit the as- 
trologer, since the repetition of his dream indicated 
the same. He therefore reproached Amram for not 



VAIN PKECAUTIONS. 95 

having adopted better measures, which might have 
rendered impossible the transgression of his com- 
mands. 

But Amram said, " Pardon thy servant if he ven- 
ture to doubt the infallibility of this master's inter- 
pretation, but the measures which I have adopted, 
and executed under my own inspection, are of that 
sort, that on this occasion it is quite incomprehensible 
to me. Yesterday, as soon as I had left the royal 
palace, I betook myself to the other side of the river, 
and, summoning all the men of Israel, threatened 
with death him who should under any pretext what- 
ever remain behind. Nevertheless, to make sure that, 
if any one had remained concealed in his dwell- 
ing, he should still be separated from his wife, I com- 
manded all women to be shut up in another quarter 
of the city, which, like the camp of the men, I sur- 
rounded with troops, so that no one was able to go 
in or out. Meanwhile, I will so act as if I were 
persuaded of this astrologer's statement. If thou 
desire it, I shall strangle the women, or subject them 
to severer regulations ; we shall discover the guilty 
one, and destroy her." But Allah infused compassion 
towards the women of Israel into Pharaoh's heart, 
and he contented himself with having them more 
rigidly guarded. But these measures, according to 
the decision of Allah, proved abortive ; for, as Amram 
was not permitted to move out of the royal palace, 
Haman did not in the least suspect Johabed, and 



96 THE BIRTH OF MOSES. 

made her an exception from the common rule, as she 
was the vizier's wife. Within a twelvemonth from 
that time Johabed gave birth to a man child, whom 
she called Musa (Moses). She was delivered without 
a pain.* 

But the sorrow of her heart was the greater when 
she cast her eyes on the little child, whose face 
beamed like the moon in her splendour, and thought 
of his death, which was drawing nigh. Yet Moses 
rose, and said, " Fear nothing, my mother ; the God 
of Abraham is with us." 

In the night when Moses was born the idols in all 
the temples of Egypt were dashed down. Pharaoh 
heard a voice in his dream, which called to him, 
(i Turn to the only God, the Creator of heaven and 
earth, or thy destruction is inevitable." In the 
morning the astrologer appeared again, and announced 
to Pharaoh the birth of the lad who would one day 

* On these words, " And she saw that the child was fair," 
the Midrash offers the following reflection : — " The learned 
maintain that at the birth of Moses there appeared a light which 
shone over the whole world, for in the account of the creation 
we have the same phrase : ' The Lord saw the light that it was 
good.' " 

It is somewhat difficult to apprehend the precise point of 
the Rabbis. At the creation of the light it is said God saw the 
light that it was good. The subject of which it was predicated 
that it was good, then shone over the whole world. Hence it is 
argued, that, as the same predicate is applied to Moses' face, 
it must follow that it shone with similar brightness. This is no 
bad specimen of Rabbinical logic. — E. T. 



THE SENTINEL. 97 

be his destruction. Haman now commanded all 
the dwellings of the Israelitish women to be searched 
afresh, and made no exception even with Johabed's, 
fearing lest some other woman might have concealed 
her child therein. Johabed had gone out when Ha- 
man entered her house, but had previously hid 
her child in the oven, and laid much wood be- 
fore it. Finding nothing in the whole house, 
Haman commanded the wood in the oven to be 
lighted, and went away, saying, <l If there be a 
child concealed there, it will be consumed." When 
Johabed returned, and saw the blazing fire, she 
uttered a frightful cry of woe; but Moses called 
to her, " Be calm, my mother ; Allah has given the 
fire no power over me." But as the vizier frequently 
repeated his visits, and Johabed feared lest he might 
one day have the wood removed, instead of lighting 
the oven, she resolved to entrust her child to the 
Nile rather than to expose it to the danger of 
being discovered by Haman. She obtained, there- 
fore, a little ark from Amram, laid Moses in it, and 
carried it to the river at midnight ; but passing a 
sentinel, she was stopped, and asked what the ark 
contained which she carried under her arm. At 
that iustant the earth opened under the sentinel's 
feet, and engulphed him up to his neck ; and there 
came a voice out of the earth, which said, " Let this 
woman depart unharmed ; nor let thy tongue betray 
what thy eyes have seen, or thou art a child of 

F 



98 PROVIDENCE. 

death." The soldier shut his eyes in token of obe- 
dience, for his neck was already so compressed that 
he could not speak, and as soon as Johabed had 
passed on, the earth vomited him forth again. 
When she arrived at the place on the shore where 
she designed to conceal the ark among the rushes, 
she beheld a huge black serpent — it was Iblis, who 
placed himself in her way in this form, with the in- 
tention of staggering her resolve. Affrighted, she 
started back from the vile reptile ; but Moses called 
to her from the ark, " Be without fear, my mother ; 
pass on : my presence shall chase away this serpent." 
At these words Iblis vanished. Johabed, then opening 
the ark once more, pressed Moses to her heart, closed 
it, and laid it weeping and sobbing among the 
reeds, in hopes that some compassionate Egyptian 
woman would come and take it up. But as she depart- 
ed, she heard a voice from heaven exclaim, i c Be not 
cast down, oh wife of Amram ! we will bring back thy 
son to thee ; he is the elected messenger of Allah." 

To manifest the weakness of human machina- 
tions against that which the Kalam has written on 
the heavenly tablets of fate, Allah had ordained 
that the child now at the mercy of the floods 
should be saved by Pharaoh's own family. He com- 
manded, therefore, as soon as Johabed had left 
the Nile, that the angel who was set over the 
waters should float the ark in which Moses lay, 
into the canal which united Pharaoh's palace 



THE CURE OF THE SEVEN PRINCESSES. 99 

with the river. For, on account of his leprous 
daughters, to whom his physicians had prescribed 
bathing in the Nile, he had constructed a canal, by 
which the water of that river was guided into a large 
basin in the midst of the palace gardens. The eldest 
of the seven princesses first discovered the little ark, 
and carried it to the bank to open it. On her re- 
moving the lid, there beamed a light upon her which 
her eyes were not able to endure. She cast a veil 
over Moses, but at that instant her own face, which 
hitherto had been covered with scars and sores of all 
the most hideous colours imaginable, shone like the 
moon in its brightness and purity, and her sisters 
exclaimed in amazement, " By what means hast thou 
been so suddenly freed from leprosy ? " * 

" By the miraculous power of this child," replied 
the eldest. " The glance which beamed upon me 
when I beheld it unveiled has chased away the im- 
purity of my body, as the rising sun scatters the 
gloom of night." 

The six sisters, one after the other, now lifted the 
veil from Moses' face, and they too became fair as if 
they had been formed of the finest silver. The eldest 

* The daughter of Pharaoh went to the river, for she was a 
leper, and not permitted to use warm baths ; but she was healed 
as soon as she stretched out her hand to the crying infant, whose 
life she preserved. She said within herself, " He will live to be a 
man; and whoever preserves a life is like the saviour of a world." 
For this cause also she obtained the blessings of the life to 
come. — Midrash, p. 51. 

f 2 



100 PKESENTIMENTS. 

then took the ark on her head, and carried it to her 
mother Asia, relating to her in how miraculous a 
manner both she and her sisters had been healed. 

Asia took Moses from the ark, and brought him to 
Pharaoh, followed by the seven princesses. Pharaoh 
started involuntarily when Asia entered his chamber, 
and his heart was filled with dark presentiments ; — 
besides, it was not customary for his women to come 
to him uninvited. But his face regained its cheerful- 
ness when he beheld the seven princesses, whose 
beauty now surpassed all their contemporaries. 

" Who are these maidens ? " he inquired of Asia. 
i( Are they slaves whom some tributary prince has 
sent to me?" 

" They are thy daughters, and here upon my arm 
is the physician who has cured them of their leprosy." 

She then narrated to the king how the princesses 
had found Moses, and how they had recovered from 
their distemper on beholding him. 

Pharaoh was transported with joy, and for the first 
time in his life embraced his beloved daughters. But 
after a little while his features were overcast again, 
and he said to Asia, " This child must not live : who 
knows whether his mother be not an Israelite, and 
he the child of whom both my dreams, as well as my 
astrologers, have foreboded me so much evil ? " 

" Dost thou still believe in idle dreams, the mere 
whispers of Satan, and in the still more idle inter- 
pretations given by men who boast of reading the 



MOSES BROUGHT UP IN THE PALACE. 101 

future in the stars? Hast thou not slain the young 
mothers of Israel and their children, and even searched 
their houses ? Besides, will it not always be in thy 
power to destroy this fragile being? Meanwhile, take 
it to thy palace, in gratitude for the miraculous cure 
of thy daughters." 

The seven princesses seconded the prayers of Asia, 
until Pharaoh relented, permitting the child to be 
brought up in the royal palace. Scarcely had he 
pronounced the words of grace, when Asia hastened 
back to her apartments with the child, and sent for 
an Egyptian nurse ; but Moses thrust her away, for 
it was not the will of the Highest that he should 
receive nourishment from a worshipper of idols.* 
Asia commanded another nurse to be brought ; but 
her also, as well as a third one, Moses would not em- 
brace. On the following morning the queen made 
known that any woman, who would engage to 
nurse a strange child for a handsome remuneration, 
should repair to the royal palace. After this the 
entire court of the castle was filled with women and 
maidens, many of whom had come from curiosity only. 
Among the latter was Kolthum (Miriam), the sister 



* From these words, his sister said to the daughters of 
Pharaoh, "Shall I call a Hebrew nurse?" We may conclude, 
that they had taken him (Moses) to all the Egyptian women, 
but that he refused to receive food from them, for he thought, 
" Shall the lips which are destined to speak with the Shekinah 
touch that which is unclean ?" — Midrash, p. 51. 
f 3 



102 SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS. 

of Moses. When she heard that the child had been 
found in an ark floating on the water, and that it still 
refused to take nourishment, she ran quickly, and 
told her mother. Johabed hastened to the palace, 
and was announced to Asia as a nurse, for the 
severe regulations against the Israelitish women were 
now removed. Moses scarcely beheld his mother, 
when he stretched out his arms towards her, and 
as he embraced her immediately, she was engaged as 
a nurse for the space of two years. After the ex- 
piration of that time, Asia sent her away with 
many rich presents, but kept Moses with her, 
intending to adopt him as her son, since she had 
no male descendants. Pharaoh himself became daily 
more attached to the child, and often spent whole 
hours together in playing with him. One day, 
— Moses was then in his fourth year, — while 
Pharaoh was playing with him, he took the 
crown from the king's head, and throwing it on 
the ground, thrust it away with his foot. The king's 
suspicion was roused afresh : enraged he ran to Asia, 
reproaching her for having persuaded him to let 
Moses live, and manifested once more a desire to put 
him to death*; but Asia laughed at him for per- 

* In the third year after the birth of Moses, Pharaoh was 
sitting on his throne ; the queen was at his right hand, his 
daughter, holding Moses, at his left ; and the princes of Egypt 
were seated round a table before him. Moses stretched out his 
hand, took the king's crown, and placed it on his own head. 



THE TRIAL. 103 

mitting the naughtiness of a child to excite in 
him such gloomy thoughts. 

" "Well then," said Pharaoh, " let us see whether 
the child has acted thoughtlessly or with reflection ? 
Let a bowl with burning coals, and one with coin 
be brought. If he seize the former, he shall live ; 
but if he stretch out his hand to the latter, he has 
betrayed himself." 

Asia was forced to obey, and her eyes hung in 
painful suspense on Moses' hand, as if her own life 
had been at stake. Endowed with manly understand- 
ing, Moses was on the point of taking a handful of the 
shining coin, when Allah, watching over his life, sent 
an angel, who, against the child's will, directed his 
hand into the burning coals, and even put one to his 
mouth. Pharaoh was again re-assured, and entreated 
Asia for forgiveness; but Moses had burned his 
tongue, and was a stammerer from that day.* 



The courtiers were terrified; and Bileam the magician said, 
" Remember, oh king ! thy dreams, and their interpretations : 
this child is doubtless of the Hebrews who worship God in their 
hearts ; and he has, by a movement of his precocious wisdom, 
laid hold on the government of Egypt. (Here follow examples 
from Abraham to Joseph, showing the ambition of the Hebrews 
to usurp the Egyptian throne.) If it please the king, let us 
shed this child's blood before he be strong enough to destroy 
thy kingdom." But the Lord sent an angel in the form of an 
Egyptian prince, who said, " If it please the king, let two bowls, 
the one filled with Shoham stones, the other with burning 
coals, be presented to the child," &c. — Midrash, p. 52. 

* The Jewish legend accounts from this occurrence for the 
f 4 



104 THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 

When Moses was six years old, Pharaoh one 
day teased him so much, that in his anger he 
pushed with his foot so violently against the throne 
on which Pharaoh sat, that it was overthrown ; Pha- 
raoh fell on the earth, and bled profusely from his 
mouth and nose. He sprung to his feet, and drew his 
sword against Moses to thrust him through — 
Asia and the seven princesses were present, yet all 
their endeavours to calm him were in vain. Then 
there flew a white cock towards the king, and cried, 
" Pharaoh, if thou spill the blood of this child, thy 
daughters shall be more leprous than before." Pha- 
raoh cast a glance on the princesses ; and as from 
dread and fright their faces were already suffused 
with a ghastly yellow, he desisted again from his 
bloody design. 

Thus Moses grew up in Pharaoh's house, amidst 
every variety of danger, which God, however, 
warded off in a miraculous manner. One morning 
— he was then already in his eighteenth year — he was 
performing his ablutions in the Nile, and prayed to 
Allah. An Egyptian priest saw him, and observed 
that he prayed unlike the other Egyptians, who 
always turn their faces towards Pharaoh's palace, 
while the eyes of Moses were directed on high. 

words of Moses in Exodus, chap. iv. ver. 10. : " Oh ! my Lord, 
I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken 
to thy servant ; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. 1 ' — 
E. T. 



THE PERFIDIOUS BIGOT. 105 

" Whom worshippest thou ? " inquired the priest, 
in great astonishment. 

Moses, having finished his prayer, replied, "My 
Lord!" 

"Thy father Pharaoh?" 

" May Allah curse thee, and all those who worship 
the king as God ! " 

" Thou shalt atone with thy life for this impre- 
cation. I will forthwith go to thy father, and accuse 
thee before him." 

Then Moses prayed, " Lord of the waters ! who 
hast destroyed by the floods the whole human race, 
save Noah and Audj, let them even now overflow 
their banks, to engulf this blasphemous priest." 

He had scarcely pronounced these words, when 
there arose such waves in the Nile as only the fiercest 
tempest excites in the mighty ocean. One of them 
rolled over the shore, and swept away the priest into 
the stream. 

When he saw his life in danger, he cried out. 
" Mercy ! oh Moses, have mercy ! I swear that I 
will conceal what I have heard from thee." 

" But if thou break thine oath ? " 

" Let my tongue be cut out of my mouth." 

Moses saved the priest, and went his way ; but 
when he came to the royal palace he was summoned 
before Pharaoh, beside whom sat the priest, who had 
evidently betrayed him. 

" Whom worshippest thou ? " inquired Pharaoh. 

F 5 



106 MANSL AUGHTEE. 

" My Lord," replied Moses, " who gives me meat 
and drink, who clothes me, and supplies all my 
wants." Moses thereby intended the only Grod, the 
Creator and Preserver of the world, unto whom we 
are indebted for all things. 

But Pharaoh, according to the will of Allah, re- 
ferred this reply to himself, and commanded that the 
priest, as a calumniator, should have his tongue cut 
out, and be hanged before the palace. 

Having attained the age of manhood, Moses 
frequently conversed with the Israelites during his 
excursions, and listened eagerly to their accounts 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but especially of 
Joseph, for his mother had long ere this revealed to 
him the secret of his birth. One day he beheld how a 
Kopt was most cruelly treating an Israelite, by name 
Samiri. The latter implored his protection, and Moses 
struck the Egyptian a blow which stretched him life- 
less on the earth. On the following morning Samiri 
was again striving with an Egyptian, and prayed Moses 
again to help him ; but the latter reproached him for 
his quarrelsome disposition, and raised his hand 
threateningly against him. When Samiri saw this, 
he said, "Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the 
Kopt yesterday?" The Egyptian who was pre- 
sent heard it, and accused Moses of murder before 
Pharaoh. The king directed that he should be de- 
livered to the relations of the slain ; but one of the 
royal household, a friend of Moses, informed him 



THE FLIGHT. 107 

immediately of Pharaoh's sentence, and he succeeded 
in making his escape in time. 

Moses wandered many days through the wilderness, 
until Allah sent him an angel in the form of a 
Bedouin, who guided him into Midian, where the 
faithful priest Shuib (Jethro) dwelt, in the midst of 
idolaters. The sun was declining when he arrived 
before a well at the outskirts of the little town, and 
there stood Lija and Safurja, the two daughters of 
Shuib, with their flocks. * 

* According to the Jewish legend, there intervened many 
years between the flight of Moses from Egypt and his arrival 
in Midian : these years, they say, he spent in Ethiopia, where 
Bilaam had gone before him; and while the king of that 
country made war against Syria and other nations, he (Bilaam) 
treacherously seized on the capital, fortifying it with ditches 
and walls on three sides, and guarding the fourth by venomous 
serpents. The king returned, and had laid siege to this city 
during nine years without succeeding in capturing" it, when 
Moses arrived in his camp. He advised him to take all the 
storks' eggs from the neighbouring forests, to rear the young, 
and having withheld their food from them for some days, to 
send them against the serpents. The king did so, the storks 
destroyed the serpents, and the city was taken ; but Bilaam 
escaped through an opposite gate, and again excited Pharaoh 
against the people of Israel. The Ethiopians made Moses their 
first vizier, and afterwards their king, giving to him the deceased 
king's widow in marriage. But as she was an idolater, he 
refused to treat her as his wife, nor did he participate in the 
religious observances of the people : the queen therefore ac- 
cused him publicly, and proposed her own son to reign in his 
stead ; but Moses fled to Midian ; and Jethro, fearing the 
Ethiopians, imprisoned him during ten years without giving 
f 6 



108 CHIVALRY. 

" Why do you not water your cattle ? " inquired 
Moses, " since the night will soon overtake you." 

(i We do not venture to do so," replied Lija, i( until 
the other shepherds, who hate us and our father, have 
first watered theirs." 

Then Moses himself led their cattle to the well, 
and said, " If any of the shepherds has aught against 
you, I myself will see to the matter." The maidens 
yielded, nor did any of the shepherds, who as- 
sembled around, dare to oppose Moses, for his holy 
appearance filled them with awe. 

When Shuib, astonished at the unusually early 
return of his daughters, heard from them that a 
stranger had watered their cattle, he sent Safurja to 
the well to invite him to his house. But Moses, al- 
though suffering with hunger, did not touch the re- 
freshments that were set before him; and when 
Shuib inquired why he rejected his hospitality, he 
replied, " I am not of those who accept a reward for 
any good deed that they have done." 

" In like manner, I," replied Shuib, " am not of 
those who show hospitality only to their benefactors, 
My house is open to every stranger ; and as such, not 
as the protector of my daughters, thou mayest accept 
my invitation." 

Moses then ate till he was satisfied, and related 
during his repast what had befallen him in Egypt. 

" As thou mayest not return to thy home," said 

him any food; but Zipora secretly supplied him with bread 
and water, &c. 



THE EOD. 109 

Shuib, when he had come to the conclusion of his 
narrative, "remain with me as my shepherd, and, 
after serving me eight or ten years faithfully, I will 
give thee my daughter Safurja to wife." 

Moses accepted this offer, and pledged himself to 
eight years' service, but added that he should cheerfully 
remain two years longer, if he had nothing to com- 
plain of; and he abode ten years with him. On 
the morning following his arrival, he accompanied 
the daughters of Shuib to the pasture ; but as he had 
fled from Egypt without a staff, Safurja brought to 
him the miraculous rod of her father, which had 
served for the support and defence of the prophets 
before him.* Adam had brought it with him from 
Paradise : after his death it passed into the hands of 
Sheth; after that it went to Idris, then to Noah, 
Salih, and Abraham. Moses was thirty years old 

* The rod of Moses was created on the sixth day, and given 
to Adam while yet in Paradise : he left it to Enoch, and he 
gave it to Shem : from him it descended to Isaac and Jacob. 
The latter took it with him into Egypt, and before his death 
presented it to Joseph. When he died it was taken, with the 
rest of his goods, to Pharaoh's house, where Jethro, being one 
of the king's magicians, saw it; and taking it with him to 
Midian, he planted it in his garden, where no one was able to 
approach it until the arrival of Moses. He read the mysterious 
words written upon the staff, and took it without difficulty 
from the ground. Jethro, who saw this, exclaimed, " This is 
the man who shall deliver Israel ! " and gave him his daughter 
Zipora. With this staff Moses kept Jethro's flock during forty 
years, without being attacked by wild beasts, and without 
losing any from his fold." — Midrash, p. 53. 



110 THE MISSION. 

when he entered the service of Shuib, and thirty- 
eight on his marriage with Safurja. In his fortieth 
year he determined to return to Egypt, in order to 
inquire after his relations and brethren in the faith. 
It was a cold and stormy day when he drew near to 
Mount Thur, on which a bright fire was blazing ; and 
he said to his wife, " Rest here in the valley ; I will 
see what this flame signifies, and bring thee a few 
brands on my return." But when Moses came near the 
fire, he heard a voice out of the midst of the burning 
and yet unconsumed bush exclaim, " Take off thy 
shoes, for thou art in the presence of thy Lord, who 
manifests himself to thee as The Light, to sanctify 
thee as his prophet, and to send thee to Pharaoh, 
whose unbelief and cruelty are so great, that long ere 
this the mountains would have crushed him, the seas 
have swallowed him up, or the flames of heaven con- 
sumed his soul, if I had not determined to give in his 
person a proof of my omnipotence unto the whole 
world." 

Moses fell down and said, " Lord, I have slain 
an Egyptian, and Pharaoh will put me to death if I 
appear before him ; besides, my tongue has been para- 
lysed since my infancy, so that I am not able to 
speak before kings." 

" Fear not, son of Amram ! " replied the voice 
from the fire. " If thy Lord had not watched over 
thee, thou wouldst have been changed into dust 
even before thy birth ; but as regards thy imperfect 



THE SIGN. Ill 

speech, it shall not prevent the exercise of thy calling, 
for I give to thee thy brother Aaron as vizier, who 
shall communicate my will to Pharaoh. 

f< Go fearlessly to Pharaoh ; the staff which is in thy 
hand shall protect thee from violence. Thou canst 
persuade thyself of it if thou wilt but lay it down 
on the earth." 

Moses threw away his staff, and, behold ! it was 
changed into a large living serpent. He would have 
fled from it, but the angel Gabriel held him back, and 
said, " Lay hold of it ; it can do thee no harm." Moses 
stretched out his hand towards it, and it once more was 
changed into a staff. Strengthened by this miracle, 
he was about to return to Safurja to pursue with 
her his way to Egypt ; but the angel Gabriel said 
to him, " Thou hast now higher duties than those 
of a husband. By command of Allah, I have already 
taken back thy wife to her father, but thou shalt 
fulfil thy mission alone." 

On the night that Moses was treading Egyptian 
ground, there appeared unto Aaron, who had succeeded 
his father Amram as vizier to Pharaoh, an angel with 
a crystal cup filled with the rarest old wine; and said, 
as he handed him the cup, " Drink, Aaron, of the 
wine which the Lord has sent thee in token of glad 
tidings. Thy brother Moses has returned to Egypt ; 
God has chosen him to be his prophet, and thee to be 
his vizier. Arise, and go to meet him." 



112 AARON. 

Aaron instantly left Pharaoh's chamber, in which 
he, as once his father before him, was obliged lo 
watch, and went beyond the city towards the Nile. 
But when he reached the bank of the stream, there 
was not a single boat at hand to ferry him over. Sud- 
denly he beheld a light at a distance ; and on its nearer 
approach he discovered a horseman, who flew towards 
him with the speed of the wind. It was Gabriel 
mounted on the steed Hizam, which shone like the 
purest diamond, and whose neighings were celestial 
songs of praise. Aaron's first thought was that he 
was pursued by one of Pharaoh's men, and he was on 
the brink of casting himself into the Nile, but Gabriel 
made himself known in time to prevent him, and 
lifted him on his winged horse, which carried them 
both to the opposite bank of the Nile. Here Moses 
was standing ; and as soon as he beheld his brother, 
he cried aloud, " Truth has come, and falsehood has 
fled ! " Gabriel then placed Moses also beside him, 
and set him down before the house of his mother. 
But Aaron he carried back into the royal palace, and 
when Pharaoh awoke, his vizier was again at his post. 
Moses spent the remainder of that night and the 
whole of the next day with his mother, to whom he 
was obliged to relate all that had befallen him in a 
foreign land since the day of his flight from Egypt. 
The second night he spent with Aaron in Pharaoh's 
chamber. All the doors of the palace, however fast 
they were closed, opened of their own accord as soon 



THE NIGHT- VISIT. 113 

as he touched them with his rod, and the guards 
standing before them became as if petrified. But 
when they reported in the morning what they had 
seen, and the porter who came in with his keys 
to open the doors of the palace, found them wide 
open, while neither door nor lock exhibited any mark 
of violence, and nothing of the costly things scattered 
through the various saloons were missing, Haman 
said to Pharaoh, " Aaron, who has watched by thee 
must explain this matter; for as thy chamber has 
likewise been opened, the intruder can have had no 
other object than to converse with him." * 

Pharaoh immediately summoned Aaron before 

* Rabbi Meier says, "Pharaoh's palace had 400 gates, 100 
on each side ; and before each gate stood 60,000 tried warriors." 
It was therefore necessary that Gabriel introduced Moses and 
Aaron by another way. On seeing them, Pharaoh said, " Who 
has admitted them ? " He summoned the guards, and com- 
manded some of them to be beaten, and others to be slain. But 
as Moses and Aaron returned the next day again, the guards, 
when called in, said, " These men are sorcerers, for they cer- 
tainly have not come in through the gates." On the same page 
it is said, " Before the gate of the royal palace were two lion- 
esses, which did not suifer any one to pass through without the 
express command of Pharaoh, and they would have rushed upon 
Moses ; but he raised his staff, their chains fell off, and they 
followed him joyfully into the palace, as a dog follows his master 
after a long separation," &c. And again, " The 400 gates of 
the palace were guarded by bears, lions, and other ferocious 
beasts, who suffered no one to pass unless they fed them with 
flesh. But when Moses and Aaron came, they gathered about 
them, and licked the feet of the prophets, accompanying them 
to Pharaoh." — Midrash, pp. 44, 45. 



114 THE "DENOUEMENT." 

him, and threatening him with the rack, demanded 
who his nightly visiter had been. Aaron, in the 
conviction that Allah would not leave his prophet in 
the power of an infidel king, avowed that it was his 
brother Moses who had been with him. Pharaoh 
immediately sent Haman with a detachment of the 
royal body-guard into Moses' dwelling, in order to 
bring him to judgment in the presence of all viziers 
and high officers of state, who were forthwith ordered 
to assemble in the grand hall. He himself presided 
on his throne, which was entirely of gold, and adorned 
with the most costly pearls and diamonds. When 
Moses stept into the judgment-hall, Pharaoh swooned 
away, for he recognised in him the child that had 
been saved by his daughters, and now feared him the 
more, inasmuch as he knew that he was Aaron's 
brother, and consequently an Israelite. But he soon 
recovered, on their sprinkling him with rose-water, 
and with his consciousness also returned his former 
stubborness of heart. Pretending never to have seen 
him before, he inquired, " Who art thou ? " 

" I am the servant of Allah, and his messenger." 

" Art thou not Pharaoh's slave ? " 

" I acknowledge no other lord than the only 
Allah." 

<c To whom art thou sent ? " 

" To thee, in order to admonish thee to faith in 
Allah and in me his messenger, and to lead forth the 
Israelites out of thy country." 



THE ROBE OF HONOUE. 115 

" Who is the Allah in whose name thou speakest 
tome?" 

" The only One, the Invisible, who hath created 
heaven and earth, and all that in them is." 

Pharaoh then turned to Aaron, and inquired of 
him, " What thinkest thou of the words of this fool- 
hardy man ? " 

" I believe in the only God, whom he proclaims, 
and in him as his messenger." 

On hearing this, Pharaoh said to Haman, " This 
man has ceased to be my vizier : take off forthwith 
his robe of honour ! " 

Haman then took his purple robe from him, and 
he stood ashamed, for the upper part of his body was 
uncovered. Moses cast over him his woollen gar- 
ment ; but, as he was not accustomed to such coarse 
raiment, he trembled in all his limbs. At that mo- 
ment the ceiling of the hall was opened, and Gabriel 
flung a robe round Aaron glittering with so many dia- 
monds that all who were present were dazzled, as if 
the lightning had flashed through the darkest night. 
Pharaoh admired this robe, which had not a single 
seam, and inquired of his treasurer what might be 
its value. 

<e Such a garment," replied the troubled treasurer, 
** is priceless, for the meanest of the jewels is worth 
ten whole years' revenue of Egypt. Such diamonds 
I have never beheld in any bazar, nor are the like 
to be found among all the treasures that have been 



116 THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH. 

amassed in this palace from the earliest times. None 
but sorcerers can obtain possession of such jewels by 
Satanic arts." 

" Ye are then sorcerers ! " said Pharaoh to Moses 
and Aaron. " Be it so. I esteem sorcerers highly, 
and will make you the heads of this fraternity, 
if ye will swear not to use your art to my pre- 
judice." 

" The Lord of the distant east and west," rejoined 
Moses, " has sent me as a prophet unto thee, in order 
to convert thee. We are no sorcerers." 

<e And wherewithal wilt thou prove thy mission ? " 

Moses flung his staff on the ground, and instantly it 
was changed into a serpent as huge as the largest camel. 
He glanced at Pharaoh with fire-darting eyes, and 
raised Pharaoh's throne aloft to the ceiling, and open- 
ing his jaws, cried, " If it pleased Allah, I could not 
only swallow up thy throne, with thee and all that 
are here present, but even thy palace and all that it 
contains, without any one perceiving the slightest 
change in me." 

Pharaoh leapt from his throne, and adjured Moses, 
by Asia his wife, to whom he was indebted for life 
and education, to protect him against this monster. 
At the mention of Asia's name, Moses felt compassion 
towards Pharaoh, and called the serpent to him. The 
serpent placed the throne in its proper position, and 
stepped like a tender lamb before Moses. He put 
his hand into his jaws, and seized him by his tongue, 



HARDNESS OF HEART. 117 

whereupon he once more became a staff. But scarcely 
was this peril warded off from Pharaoh, when his 
heart again opened to the whispers of Satan, and 
instead of lending his ear to Moses, he demanded of 
the viziers to counsel him what he should do. 

"Let the heads of these two rebels be cut off," 
said Haman, " and fear nothing from them ; for all 
that they represent as divine wonders is nothing but 
idle delusion." 

" Do not follow this counsel, mighty king ! " cried 
Hiskil, the treasurer: " think of the contemporaries 
of Noah, and the nations of Aad and Thamud. 
They also believed Noah, Hud, and Salih, the pro- 
phets whom Allah had sent, to be demons and de- 
ceivers, until the wrath of Allah fell on them, destroy- 
ing them and their possessions by fire and water." 

But now uprose Haman's predecessor, a hoary man 
of a hundred-and- twenty years of age, and said, 
" Permit me also, O king of kings ! before I descend 
to the grave, to impart to thee my opinion. What 
king can boast of having so many magicians in his 
kingdom as thou ? I therefore hold it to be the wisest 
plan that thou fix on a day in which they all may 
assemble together, and have a meeting with Moses 
and Aaron. If these are nothing but sorcerers, the 
Egyptian masters of this art will not be a whit in- 
ferior to them ; and then thou art still at liberty to 
do with them according to thy high will. But if 
they put thy sorcerers to shame, then are they indeed 



118 SEVENTY THOUSAND SORCERERS. 

the servants of a mightier God, to whom we shall be 
forced to submit." 

Pharaoh approved of the counsel of his aged vizier, 
and commanded all the sorcerers of Egypt, seventy 
thousand in number, to repair to the capital at the 
expiration of a month. 

When they were assembled, the king commanded 
them to choose seventy chiefs from their body : and 
these seventy were again to be represented by the two 
most renowned among them, in order to contend in 
magic arts with Moses and Aaron in the face of the 
whole people. Pharaoh's command was punctually 
obeyed, and the choice of the magicians fell on 
Risam and Rejam, two men of Upper Egypt, who 
were no less esteemed and feared throughout the 
whole country than Pharaoh himself. 

On an appointed day, Pharaoh, for whom a large 
silken tent, embroidered with pearls and supported 
on silver pillars, had been erected, proceeded to a 
large plain beyond the city, accompanied by his 
viziers and the nobles of his kingdom : Risam and 
Rijam on the one side of the tent, and Moses and 
Aaron on the other, awaited his commands : and the 
whole population of Egypt was on the field of contest 
from early dawn, anxious to see which party would 
obtain the victory. Pharaoh demanded of the two 
Egyptians to change their rods into serpents: this 
was done, and Haman said to Pharaoh, " Did not I 



CONTEST AND VICTORY. 119 

tell thee that Moses and Aaron were no more than 
other sorcerers, who deserve chastisement for having 
abused their art?" 

" Thou art too hasty in thy judgment," said 
Hiskil. " Let us see first whether Moses will not 
be able to do still greater things than these." 

At a sign from the king, Moses stepped forward 
and prayed to Allah, that he would glorify his name in 
the face of all Egypt. Allah then brought to nought 
the charm of the Egyptians, which was mere illusion, 
and it was unto all present, as if a dark veil was 
removed from their eyes ; and they recognised again 
as staffs what had appeared before as serpents. 
Moses threw his staff upon the earth, and it became 
a serpent with seven heads, which did not remain 
motionless like those of the magicians, but pursued 
the two sorcerers with open jaws. They threw them- 
selves to the earth, and exclaimed, "We believe in 
the Lord of the World, the Grod of Moses and Aaron." 

Pharaoh cried to them, wrathfully, " How dare 
you confess yourselves to another faith without my 
permission, simply because these sorcerers are more 
dexterous than you ? Unless you recall your words, 
I shall cause your hands and feet to be cut offj and 
shall hang you on the gallows." 

"Wilt thou punish us," replied the sorcerers, 
** because we cannot deny the signs of Allah ? Behold 
we are prepared to yield up our lives in support of 
our faith." 



120 MARTYRS. 

Pharaoh, in order to set a terrible example, caused 
the threatened punishment to be executed on them, 
and they died the first martyrs to the faith of Moses. 

The king now waxed daily more cruel; every 
believer was put to death with the most excruciating 
tortures. He did not even spare his own daughter, 
Masheta, the wife of Hiskil, on learning that she no 
longer honoured him as God. She endured with 
admirable fortitude the death by fire, after seeing all 
her children slaughtered before her eyes at Pharaoh's 
command. 

Asia herself was now accused before him of apos- 
tasy, and even she was condemned to death, but the 
angel Gabriel comforted her with the annunciation 
that she should hereafter be united with Mohamed 
in Paradise, and gave her a potion by which she died 
without pain. 

Pharaoh now conceived, like Nimrod before him, 
the iniquitous design to war against the God of Moses; 
he therefore caused a tower to be built, at which fifty 
thousand men, mostly Israelites, were compelled to 
labour day and night, he himself riding up and down 
among them to urge on the indolent. But Moses prayed 
to Allah, and the tower fell in, crushing under its ruins 
all those Egyptians who had committed violence 
against the Israelites. But even this judgment made 
only a passing impression on the heart of Pharaoh, for 
Allah desired to perform still greater wonders before 
he condemned the soul of the kinsr to eternal hell. 



THE PLAGUES, 121 

First He visited him with a flood. The Nile over- 
flowed its banks, and the waters rose so high that 
they reached to the neck of the tallest man. After 
that, a host of locusts invaded the land, which not 
only consumed all provisions, but even copper and 
iron. Then followed all kinds of disgusting vermin, 
which defiled all meats and drinks, and filled all 
garments and beds, so that Pharaoh, however often 
he might change his raiment, had not a moment's 
rest. When this plague disappeared, and Pharaoh 
still resisted the wishes of Moses, all the waters 
were changed to blood as soon as an Egyptian took 
them in his hand, but remained unchanged for the 
Israelites.* 

Finally, many of the Egyptians, especially the more 
eminent, who had strengthened Pharaoh in his tm- 
belief, were turned into stone, together with all 
their goods. Here, one might see a petrified man, 
sitting in the bazaar, with a balance in his hand ; there, 
another, marking something with the Kalam, or count- 
ing gold, and even the gate-keeper of the palace stood 



* " All the water kept in vessels was changed into blood, 
even the spittle in the mouth of the Egyptians ; for it is written, 
1 there was blood throughout the land of Egypt.' " Rabbi 
Levi informs us that this plague enriched the Jews; for if a Jew 
and an Egyptian lived together in the same house, and the Egyp- 
tian went to draw water, it was changed into blood ; but if the 
Jew went, it remained pure. Drinking out of the same vessel, 
the Jew obtained water, and the other blood ; but if the latter 
bought it of the Jew, it remained pure." — MidrasJi, p. 56. 

G 



122 THE PLAGUES. 

there turned to stone, holding a sword in his right 
hand. Omar Ibn Abd Alasis* had in his possession all 
kinds of petrified fruits of those times, and frequently 
showed them to his guests as a warning against un- 
belief. At Moses' prayer, Allah revived the petri- 
fied men; but when Pharaoh refused afresh to 
permit the Israelites to depart, there burst out upon 
the land so thick a darkness, that whoever happened 
to be standing could not sit down, and whoever hap- 
pened to be sitting had no power to rise. Thereupon 
the Nile was dried up, so that man and beast died of 
thirst. On this occasion, Pharaoh himself ran to 
Moses and adjured him to pray for him once more, 
that the water might flow back into the Nile. For the 
last time, Moses prayed for him, and the Nile was not- 
only filled to its banks, but there also streamed from 
it a little brook, which followed Pharaoh whither- 
soever he went, so that at any moment he was able 
to supply with water both man and beast. But 
instead of turning to Allah, the king made use of this 
special favour also as a means of inducing the people 
to reverence him still as God. 

The long-suffering of the Lord was now exhausted, 
and the king was himself to pronounce his sentence, 
and to choose the manner of death which his wicked- 
ness had deserved. Gabriel assumed the appearance 
of a noble Egyptian, and accused before Pharaoh one 

* This Omar was the eighth caliph of the house of Omarides. 
He ascended the throne in the 99th year of the Hegira, and 
was previously governor of Egypt. 



THE SENTENCE. 123 

of his slaves who, in his absence, had proclaimed him- 
self the lord of the house, and constrained the other 
domestics to serve him. " This impostor," said Pha- 
raoh, "deserves to die." 

" How shall I put him to death ? " 

" Let him be thrown into the water. 

" Give me a written warrant." 

Pharaoh commanded an instrument to be drawn 
up, according to which any slave who usurped the 
honours of his master, was to be drowned. 

Gabriel left Pharaoh, and gave Moses the command 
to quit Egypt with his people. Pharaoh pursued 
them with his host, and enclosed them on all sides, 
so that there remained no other way of escape to 
Israel than towards the Red Sea. Hemmed in 
between the Egyptians and the sea, they fell with 
reproaches upon Moses, who had brought them into 
this dangerous position ; but he raised his staff towards 
the waters, and instantly there were twelve paths 
opened through the sea, for the twelve tribes of 
Israel; each of which was separated from the rest by 
a lofty, yet quite transparent wall, 

When Pharaoh reached the sea-shore, and beheld 
the dry paths in the midst of the sea, he said to 
Haman, "Now is Israel lost to us, for even the 
waters seem to favour their flight." 

But Haman replied: "Are not those paths opened 
likewise for us ? We shall soon overtake them with 
our horse." 



124 THE DEATH-WARRANT. 

Pharaoh took the path in which Moses marched 
with the tribe of Levi ; but his steed grew restive, 
and was unwilling to go forward. Then mounted 
Gabriel, in human form, on the horse Ramka, and 
rode in before Pharaoh. This horse was so beautiful, 
that as soon as the king's steed saw him, he plunged in 
behind. 

But when Pharaoh and his whole host were in the 
sea, the angel Gabriel turned to the king, and showed 
him the warrant of the previous day, bearing the royal 
seal, and said — " Frail mortal, who didst desire to be 
worshipped as God ! behold, thou hast condemned 
thyself to die by water." At these words, the twelve 
walls tumbled in, the floods burst forth, and Pharaoh 
and all that followed him perished in the waters. But 
in order to convince both the Egyptians who had 
remained behind, as well as the Israelites, of Pharaoh's 
death, Allah commanded the waves to cast his body 
first on the western and then on the eastern shore 
of the Red Sea. 

But now Moses had no less to contend against the 
Israelites, than formerly against Pharaoh; for they 
seemed unable to tear themselves from the service of 
idols, notwithstanding all the wonders of the only 
Lord, which he had performed. 

Yet as long as he tarried with them they presumed 
not to demand an idol ; but when Allah called him to 
himself on Mount Sinai, they threatened Aaron, 
whom he had left behind as his representative, with 
death, if he would not give them an idol. 



THE GOLDEN CALF. 125 

Samiri now admonished them to bring all their 
gold, including even the ornaments of their women, 
and cast it into a copper caldron, under which a 
strong fire was lighted. As soon as the gold was 
melted, he flung into it a handful of sand, which he 
had taken up from under the hoof of Gabriel's horse, 
and, lo ! there was formed out of it a calf, which ran 
up and down like a natural one. 

"Here is your Lord, and the Lord of Moses!" 
then cried Samiri ; " this God we will worship ! " * 

Whilst the Israelites, notwithstanding the admo- 
nition of Aaron, had abandoned Allah, the angel 
Gabriel uplifted Moses so high into the heavens, 
that he heard the scribbling of the Kalam which 
had just received the command to engrave the 
Decalogue for him and for his people on the eternal 
tablets of fate. 

But the higher Moses rose, the stronger grew his 
desire to behold Allah himself in his glory. 

Then commanded Allah all the angels to surround 
Moses, and to commence a song of praise. Moses 
swooned away, for he was wanting in strength both to 



* According to the Rabbinical legends, Samael (Satan) 
rushed into the calf, and groaned so loudly, that the Israelites 
believed it living. The Rabbis also maintained that it was npt 
Aaron, but some other person (some say Micah) who made the 
calf. — Vide Seiger, p. 167. 

G 3 



126 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. 

behold these hosts of shining forms as well as to hear 
their thrilling voices. 

But when he came to himself again he confessed that 
he had asked a sinful thing, and repented. He then 
prayed to Allah that he would make his people the most 
excellent of the earth. But Allah replied, "The 
Kalam has already marked down as such the people 
of Mohamed, because they shall fight for the true 
faith until it cover the whole earth." 

(e Lord," continued Moses, " reward tenfold the 
good deeds of my people, and visit sin but once ; let 
also each good intention, though not carried into 
effect, obtain a recompense, but pass by each evil 
thought unpunished." 

" These are privileges," replied Allah, " accorded to 
those only who believe in Mohamed, in whose name 
even Adam prayed to me. Admonish, therefore, thy 
people to faith in him, for he shall rise first on the day 
of the resurrection from his grave, and enter into 
Paradise at the head of all the prophets. He also 
shall obtain the grace of revealing to his people the 
commandment of the five daily prayers and the fast 
of Eamadhan. " * 



* It is well known that the Mussulmans keep a yearly fast 
which lasts from sunrise to sunset a whole month ; and they 
even exceed the Jews in strictness, for they not only take nei- 
ther meat nor drink, but also abstain from smoking during the 
fast. As their year is lunar, the month of Eamadhan fells at 
every season of the year.' 



THE WANDERING JEW. 127 

When Moses returned again to his own people, 
and found them worshipping before the golden calf, 
he fell upon Aaron, caught him by the beard, and 
was on the point of strangling him, when Aaron 
swore that he was innocent, and pointed out Samiri 
as the prime mover of this idolatry. 

Moses then summoned Samiri, and would have 
put him to death instantly, but Allah directed that he 
should be sent into banishment. 

Ever since that time he roams like a wild beast 
throughout the world; every one shuns him, and 
purifies the ground on which his feet have stood, and 
he himself, whenever he approaches men, exclaims, 
" Touch me not ! " 

Yet before Moses expelled him from the camp of 
the Israelites, at Allah's command, he caused the 
calf to be broken in pieces, and having ground it to 
dust, forced Samiri to defile it. It was then put 
into water, and given the Israelites to drink. 

After Samiri's removal, Moses prayed Allah to 
have mercy on his people ; but Allah replied, " I 
cannot pardon them, for sin yet dwells in their inward 
parts, and will only be washed away by the potion 
which thou hast given them. 

On returning to the camp, Moses heard woeful 
shriekings. Many of the Israelites, with ghastly 
faces and with bodies frightfully swollen, cast them- 
selves down before him, and cried, " Moses, help us ! 
g 4 



128 THE EXPIATION — MOUNT SINAI. 

the golden calf is tearing our vitals ; we will repent, 
and die cheerfully, if Allah will but pardon our sin." 
Many repented really of their sins ; but from others 
only pain and the fear of death had extorted these 
expressions of repentance. 

Moses commanded them, therefore, in the name of 
Allah, to slay each other. 

Then there rose a darkness, like unto that which 
Allah had sent upon Pharaoh. The innocent and re- 
claimed hewed with the sword to the right and to the 
left, so that many slew their nearest kinsmen; but 
Allah gave their swords power over the guilty only. 
Seventy thousand worshippers of idols had already 
fallen, when Moses, moved by the cries of women 
and children, implored God once more for mercy. 

Instantly the heavens grew clear, the sword rested, 
and all the remaining sick were healed. 

On the following day Moses read unto them the 
Law, and admonished them to obey scrupulously 
its prescriptions. But many of the people ex- 
claimed, " We shall not submit to such a code." The 
laws especially obnoxious to them were those which 
regulated the revenge of blood, and punished the 
pettiest theft with the loss of the hand. At that 
instant, Mount Sinai became vaulted over their 
heads, excluding the very light of heaven from them, 
and there cried a voice from the rocks, " Sons of 
Israel, Allah has redeemed you from Egypt merely to 
be the bearers of his laws : if you refuse this burden, 



THE LAND OF GIANTS. 129 

we shall fall in upon you, and thus you shall be com- 
pelled to support a weightier mass until the day of 
the resurrection." 

With one voice they then exclaimed, "We are 
ready to submit to the law, and to accept it as the 
rule of our life." 

When Moses had instructed them fully in the law, 
and expounded what was pure and impure, what 
lawful and what unlawful, he gave the signal to 
march for the conquest of the promised land of 
Palestine. 

But notwithstanding all the wonders of Allah, 
who fed them with manna and quails in the wilder- 
ness, and caused twelve fresh fountains to spring out 
of the rocky ground wherever they encamped, they 
were still faint-hearted, and would not depart until 
they had obtained better information respecting the 
country and its inhabitants through spies. 

Moses was obliged to yield, and sent a man out of 
every tribe into Palestine. 

The spies on their return related : " We have seen 
the land which we are to subdue by the sword ; it is 
good and fruitful. 

" The strongest camel is scarcely able to carry one 
single bunch of grapes; a single ear yields sufficient 
corn to satisfy a whole family, and the shell of a 
pomegranate can easily contain five armed men. 

"But the inhabitants of that country and their 
cities are of a size proportionate to the products of 

G 5 



130 MOSES AND JOSHUA. 

their soil. We have seen men the smallest of whom 
was six hundred cubits high. They stared at ou£ 
dwarfish appearance, and derided us. Their houses 
naturally correspond with their size, and the walls 
which surround their cities are so high that an eagle 
is scarcely able to soar to the summit thereof." 

When the spies had finished their report, they 
dropped down dead ; only two of them, Joshua, the 
son of Nun, and Caleb, who had kept silence, re- 
mained alive. But the Israelites murmured against 
Moses, and said, " We shall never fight against such 
a gigantic people. If thou hast a mind to do so, 
march alone with thy God against them." 

Thereupon Moses announced to them, in the name 
of Allah, that by reason of their distrust in the help 
of Him who had divided the sea for their safety, they 
were doomed to wander forty years through the wil- 
derness. He then took leave of them, and journeyed, 
preaching the true faith through the whole earth 
from east to west und from north to south. 

When Moses was, one day, boasting of his wisdom 
to his servant Joshua, who accompanied him, Allah 
said : " Go to the Persian Gulf, where the seas of the 
Greeks and the Persians commingle, and thou shalt 
there find one of my pious servants who surpasses 
thee in wisdom." 

" How shall I recognise this wise man ?" 



AL CHIDE. 131 

" Take with thee a fish in a basket ; it will show 
thee where my servant lives." 

Moses now departed with Joshua towards the 
country which Allah had pointed out, and constantly 
carried with him a fish in a basket. On one occasion 
he laid himself down, quite exhausted, on the sea- 
shore, and fell asleep. It was late when he awoke, 
and he hurried on to reach the desired inn; but Jo- 
shua had, in his haste, neglected to take the fish with 
him, and Moses forgot to remind him of it. It was 
not until the next morning that they missed their 
fish, and were on the point of returning to the spot 
where they had rested on the preceding day ; but on 
reaching the sea-shore they beheld a fish gliding quite 
erect on the surface of the water, instead of swimming 
therein, as fish are wont to do : they soon recognised 
it as theirs, and, therefore, went after it along the 
shore. After having, for a few hours, followed their 
guide, it suddenly dived below : they stood still, and 
thought : " Here the god-fearing man whom we are 
seeking must dwell ; " and soon they descried a cave, 
over whose entrance was written, s( In the name of 
Allah, the All-merciful and All-gracious." On step- 
ping in, they found a man, who appeared in all the 
bloom and vigour of a youth of seventeen, but with 
a snow-white beard, flowing even to his feet. It was 
the prophet Chidr, who, though gifted with eternal 
youth, was withal endowed with the finest ornament 
of hoary age. 

g 6 



1 32 MYSTEKIES. 

After mutual salutation, Moses said : " Accept me 
as thy disciple, and permit me to accompany thee in 
thy wanderings through the world, that I may ad- 
mire the wisdom which Allah has bestowed on thee." 

" Thou canst not comprehend it, and wilt there- 
fore not remain long with me." 

" If Allah pleases, thou shalt find me both obedient 
and patient. Reject me not !" 

" Thou mayst follow me, yet must thou ask me no 
question until I shall, of my own accord, explain my 
actions." ... 

When Moses had submitted to this condition, 
Al Chidhr took him to the shore of the sea, where a 
vessel was lying at anchor. He took an axe and 
struck out two planks of the vessel, so that it sank 
immediately. 

« What dost thou ?" cried Moses : "the men that 
are in it will now perish." 

< < Did I not say," replied Al Chidr, " thou wilt 
not long continue patiently with me?" 

"Pardon me," said Moses, "I had forgotten my 
promise." 

Al Chidr then journeyed further with him, until 
they met a beautiful boy, who was playing with shells 
on the sea-shore. Al Chidr drew his knife, and cut 
the throat of the child. 

Moses cried, "Why murderest thou an innocent 
child, who can in no wise have deserved death ? thou 
hast committed a great crime ! " 



EXPLANATION. 133 

"Did I not tell thee," replied Al Chidhr, "thou 
canst not travel long in my company ? " 

" Pardon me yet this once," replied Moses, " and 
if I inquire again, then mayest thou reject me ! " 

They now travelled long to and fro, until they 
arrived weary and hungry in a large city. Yet 
no one would lodge them, nor give them meat or 
drink without money. Suddenly, Al Chidhr beheld 
how the walls of a beautiful inn, out of which they 
had just been driven, threatened to fall in ; he then 
stepped before them, and supported them until they 
stood upright again ; and when he had strengthened 
them, he went his way. 

Then said Moses to him, " Thou hast now per- 
formed a work which would have occupied many 
masons during several days ; why hast thou not at 
least demanded a reward that we might have bought 
some provisions ? " 

"Now we must separate," said Al Chidhr; "yet 
ere we part, I will explain to thee the motives of my 
conduct. The vessel which I have damaged, but which 
may be easily repaired, belonged to poor men, and 
formed their only source of maintenance. At the time 
I struck it, many ships of a certain tyrant were cruis- 
ing in those seas, capturing every serviceable craft. 
By me, therefore, these poor sailors have saved their 
only property. 

" The child whom I have slain is the son of pious 
parents ; but he himself (I perceived it in his face) 



134 PROVIDENCE. 

was of a depraved nature, and would, in the end, have 
led his parents into evil. I have therefore preferred 
to slay him : Allah will give them pious children in 
his stead. 

"As for the wall of the inn which I have raised 
up and strengthened, it belongs to two orphans whose 
father was a pious man. Beneath the wall there is 
a treasure hid, which the present owner would have 
claimed if it had fallen : I have therefore repaired it, 
that the treasure may be left secure until the children 
shall have grown up. 

" Thou seest then," continued Al Chidhr, " that 
in all this I have not followed blind passion, but have 
acted according to the will of my lord."* 

Moses prayed Al Chidhr once more to pardon him, 
but did not venture to ask permission to remain with 
him. 

* This legend is evidently of Jewish origin. It is related 
respecting Moses, that while on Mount Sinai, the Lord in- 
structed him in the mysteries of his providence. Moses having 
complained of the impunity of vice and its success in this 
world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord 
took him to a rock which projected from the mountain, and 
where he could overlook the vast plain of the desert stretching 
at his feet. 

On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He 
awoke, and, leaving behind him a bag of pearls, he sprung into 
his saddle, and rapidly disappeared from the horizon. Another 
Arab came to the oasis : he discovered the pearls, took them, 
and vanished in the opposite direction. 

Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his weary 



THE NORTH. 135 

During the last thirty years Moses had passed 
through the southern, eastern, and western parts of 
the earth ; and there were yet left to him ten years 
for wandering in the north, which, notwithstanding 
the ferocity of the nations of that region, and the rigi- 
dity of its climate, he visited in every direction until 
he came to the great iron wall which Alexander had 
erected to protect the inhabitants against the predatory 
incursions of the nations of Jadjudj and Madjudj. 
After he had admired this wall, which is cast in one 
piece, he praised the omnipotence of Allah, and 
retraced his steps towards the Arabian desert. 

Nine-and-thirty years had already elapsed since 
he had separated from his brethren. Most of the 

steps towards the shady spot : he laid himself down, and fell 
asleep. But scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was 
rudely roused from his slumber ; the young Arab had returned, 
and demanded his pearls. The hoary man replied, he had not 
taken them. The other grew enraged, and accused him of 
theft. He swore that he had not seen his treasure; but the 
other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his 
sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell 
lifeless on the earth. 

" O Lord, is this justice ? " exclaimed Moses with terror. 
" Be silent ! Behold this man, whose blood is now mingling 
with the waters of the desert, has many years ago secretly, on 
the same spot, murdered the father of the youth who has now 
slain him. His crime remained concealed from men, but ven- 
geance is mine — I will repay ! " 

The reader must be struck with the similarity of these 
fictions and the beautiful poem on the same subject by Barnell, 
who, if unacquainted with the Arabic legend, may have read 
the one we have related in Schiller's " Sendung Moses." — E. T. 



136 KORAH. 

Israelites whom he had left in their prime had 
meanwhile died, and another generation had risen in 
their stead. 

Among the few aged men who yet remained was 
his kinsman Karun (Korah), Ibn Jachar, Ibn Fa- 
hitz. He had learned from Moses' sister, Kolthum 
(Miriam), who was his wife, the science of alchemy, 
so that he was able to convert the meanest metal into 
gold. He was so rich that he built lofty walls of gold 
round his gardens ; and required forty mules to carry 
the keys of his treasuries when he travelled.* By 
means of his wealth he had succeeded in acquiring a 
truly regal influence during Moses' absence. But 
when, at Moses' return, his importance diminished, he 
resolved on his destruction. He therefore visited a 
maiden whom Moses had banished from the camp on 
account of her abandoned courses, and promised to 
marry her if she would declare before the elders of the 
congregation that Moses had expelled her only because 
she had refused to listen to his proposals. She pro- 
mised Korah to act entirely after his will. But when 
she arrived before the elders, with the intention of 
calumniating Moses, she was not able to prefer 
her charge. Allah put different words into her 
mouth: she acknowledged her guilt, and confessed 
that Korah had induced her, by innumerable pro- 



* The Midrasli says : " Korah had 300 white mules, which 
carried the keys of his treasuries. His wealth was his ruin ! " 



BALAAM. 137 

mises, to bring a false accusation against Moses. 
Moses prayed to Allah for protection against the 
malignity of his kinsman ; and lo ! the earth opened 
under the feet of Korah, and devoured him, with all 
his associates and goods. 

As the fortieth year was hastening to its close, 
Moses marched with the Israelites towards the fron- 
tier of Palestine. 

But when Jalub Ibn Safum, the king of Balka, re- 
ceived intelligence of the approach of the Israelites, 
who had already in their march conquered many cities, 
he called to him Beliam the sorcerer, the son of Baur, 
in hopes to be enabled, by his council and aid, to 
withstand the Israelites. But an angel appeared to 
Beliam in the night, and forbade him to accept the 
invitation of Jalub. When, therefore, the messengers 
of the king returned to Balka without Beliam, Ja- 
lub purchased the most costly jewels, and sent them 
secretly by other messengers to Beliam's wife, to 
whom the sorcerer was so much attached as to be 
quite under her control. Beliam's wife accepted the 
presents, and persuaded her husband to undertake 
the journey. The king, accompanied by his viziers, 
rode out some distance to meet him, and appointed 
one of the most beautiful houses of the city for his 
abode. According to the custom of the country, the 
guest was provided three days from the royal tables ; 
and the viziers visited him from time to time, without 
speaking, however, of the object for which he had 



138 THE TEMPTEK. 

been called to Balka. It was not until the fourth 
day that he was summoned to the king, and entreated 
to curse the people of Israel. But Allah paralysed the 
tongue of Beliam, so that, notwithstanding his hatred 
towards the people, he was not able to utter a word 
of imprecation. 

When the king saw this, he prayed him at least to 
assist with his counsel against the invading nation. 

" The best means against the Israelites," said Be- 
liam, "who are so terrible only through the assistance 
of Allah, is to lead them into sin. Their God then 
forsakes them, and they are unable to resist any 
foe. Send therefore the most beautiful women and 
maidens of the capital to meet them with provisions, 
that they may yield to sin, and then thou shalt easily 
overcome them." 

The king adopted this counsel ; but Moses was 
apprised thereof by the angel Gabriel, and caused the 
first Israelite who was led into sin to be put to death, 
and as a warning commanded his head to be carried 
on a spear, throughout the camp. He then instantly 
led on the attack : Balka was taken, and the king, with 
Beliam and his sons, were the first to perish in the 
fight. Soon after the conquest of Balka, Gabriel ap- 
peared, and commanded Moses, together with Aaron 
and his sons, to follow him to a lofty mountain which 
lay near the city. On reaching the pinnacle of the 
mountain they beheld a finely-wrought cave, in the 
midst of which there stood a coffin, with the in- 



THE DEATH OF AARON.' 139 

scrip tion, " I am destined for him whom I fit." Moses 
desired to lay himself first into it, but his feet pro- 
truded; then Aaron placed himself in it, and be- 
hold it fitted him, as if his measure had been taken. 
Gabriel then led Moses and Aaron's sons beyond 
the cave, but he himself returned to wash and to 
bless Aaron, whose soul had meanwhile been taken 
by the Angel of Death. When Moses returned to 
the camp without Aaron, and announced his death to 
the Israelites who inquired for his brother, he was 
suspected of having murdered him ; many even were 
not afraid to proclaim their suspicions in public. 
Moses prayed to Allah to manifest his innocence in 
the presence of all the people, and behold four angels 
brought Aaron's coffin from the cave, and raised it 
above the camp of the Israelites, so that every one 
could see him, and one of the angels exclaimed, 
" Allah has taken Aaron's soul to himself." * Moses, 
who now anticipated his approaching end, pronounced 
a long discourse before the Israelites, in which he 
enforced on them the most important laws. At the 
close he warned them against falsifying the law, 
which had been revealed to them, and in which the 
future appearance of Mohamed, in whom they were 
all to believe, was quite clearly announced. A few 
days after, while he was reading in the law, the 
Angel of Death visited him. Moses said, " If thou 

* In perfect accordance with the Midrash, p. 255, 



140 THE DEATH OF MOSES. . 

be commanded to receive my soul, take it from my 
mouth, for it was constantly occupied with the word 
of Allah, and has not been touched by any unclean 
thing." He then put on his most beautiful robes, 
appointed Joshua his successor, and died at an age of 
one hundred and twenty, or, as some of the learned 
maintain, of one hundred and eighty years — the 
mercy of Allah be with him ! 

Others relate the particulars of Moses' death as 
follows: — When Gabriel announced to him his ap- 
proaching dissolution, he ran hurriedly to his dwelling, 
and knocked hastily at the door. His wife Safurija 
opened it, and beholding him quite pale, and with 
ruffled countenance, inquired, " Who pursueth thee, 
that thou runnest hither in terror and lookest dis- 
mayed ? who is it that pursueth thee for debt ? " 

Then Moses answered, " Is there a mightier cre- 
ditor than the Lord of heaven and earth, or a more 
dangerous pursuer than the Angel of Death? " 

" Shall then a man who has spoken with Allah 
die?" 

" Assuredly, even the angel Gabriel shall be de- 
livered to death, and Michael and Israfil, with all 
other angels. Allah alone is eternal, and never dies." 

Safurija wept until she swooned away ; but when 
she came to herself, Moses inquired, "Where are 
my children ? " 

" They are asleep." 



THE DEATH OF MOSES. 141 

" Awake them, that I may bid them a last fare- 
well" 

Safurija went before the couch of the children, 
and cried, "Rise, ye poor orphans; rise, and take 
leave of yonr father, for this day is his last in this 
world and his first in the next." 

The children started from their sleep in affright, 
and cried, " "Woe unto us ! who will have compassion 
upon us when we shall be fatherless ? who will with 
solicitude and affection step over our threshold ? " 

Moses was so moved, that he wept bitterly. 

Then said Allah to him, " Moses, what signify 
these tears ? Art thou afraid of death, or departest 
thou reluctantly from this world ? " 

Cf I fear not death, and leave this world with glad- 
ness ; but I have compassion on these children from 
whom their father is about to be torn." 

" In whom trusted thy mother when she confided 
thy life to the waters ? " 

"In Thee, O Lord." 

" Who protected thee against Pharaoh, and gave 
thee a staff with which thou dividedst the sea ? " 

" Thou, O Lord." 

" Go, then, once more to the sea-shore, lift up 
thy staff over the waters, and thou shalt see another 
sign of my omnipotence." 

Moses followed this command, and instantly the 
sea was divided, and he beheld in the midst thereof 
a huge black rock. When he came near it, Allah 



142 THE DEATH OF MOSES. 

cried to him, " Smite it with thy staff," He smote 
it ; the rock was cleft in twain, and he saw beneath 
it in a sort of a cave, a worm with a green leaf in 
its mouth, which cried three times, " Praised 
be Allah, who doth not forget me in my solitude ! 
Praised be Allah, who hath nourished and raised 
me up ! " The worm was silent ; and Allah said to 
Moses, " Thou seest that I do not forsake the worm 
under the hidden rock in the sea : and how should I 
forsake thy children, who do even now confess [that 
God is One, and that Moses is his prophet? 

Moses then returned reproved, to his house, com- 
forted his wife and children, and went alone to the 
mountain. There he found four men, who were dig- 
ging a grave, and he inquired of them, " For whom 
is this grave ?" They replied, " For a man whom 
Allah desires to have with him in heaven." Moses 
begged permission to assist at the grave of so pious a 
man. "When the work was done he inquired, " Have 
you taken the measure of the dead ? " " No," they 
said, " we have forgotten it," (i but he was precisely 
of thy form and stature : lay thyself in it, that we 
may see whether it will fit thee — Allah will reward 
thy kindness." But when Moses had laid himself 
down within it, the Angel of Death stepped before 
him, and said, " Peace be upon thee, Moses ! " 

"Allah bless thee, and have pity upon thee ! Who 
art thou ? " 

" I am the Angel of Death ! Prophet of Allah, 
and come to receive thy soul." 



HIS SEPULCHRE, 143 

" How wilt thou take it ? " 

" Out of thy mouth." 

" Thou canst not, for my mouth has spoken with 
God." 

" I will draw it out of thine eyes." 

" Thou mayst not do so, for they have seen the 
light of the Lord." 

" Well then, I will take it out of thine ears." 

" This also thou mayst not do ; for they have 
heard the word of Allah." 

" I will take it from thy hands." 

(t How darest thou ? Have they not borne the dia- 
mond tablets on which the law was engraved ?" 

Allah then commanded the Angel of Death to ask 
of Ridhwan, the guardian of Paradise, an apple of 
Eden, and to present it to Moses. 

Moses took the apple from the hand of the Angel 
of Death to inhale its fragrance, and at that instant 
his noble soul rose through his nostrils to heaven. But 
his body remained in this grave, which no one knew 
save Gabriel, Michael, Israfil, and Azrail, who had 
dug it, and whom Moses had taken for men. 



144 



SAMUEL, SAUL, AND DAVID. 

The Israelites lived under Joshua, (who was, how- 
ever, not a prophet, but merely a virtuous prince and 
valiant chief) conformably to the laws revealed by 
Moses; the Lord therefore enabled them to expel 
the giants from the land of Canaan, and at their cry, 
" Allah is great," the loftiest walls of fortified cities 
fell in. 

But after Joshua's death they relapsed into all 
those iniquities on account of which the Egyptians had 
been so severely punished ; wherefore, Allah, in order 
to chastise and to reclaim his people, sent the giant, 
Djalut (Goliah) against them, who defeated them in 
numerous engagements, and even took from them the 
Tabut (the sacred ark of the Covenant), so that the 
protection of Allah entirely departed from them. 

One day, when the heads of the people were assem- 
bled to consult in what manner the mighty Goliath 
might be resisted, there came a man to them of the 
family of Aaron — his name was Ishmawil Ibn Bal 
(Samuel), and said, " The God of your fathers sent 
me to you to proclaim speedy help, if you will turn 
to him, but utter destruction if you continue in your 
wicked courses." 



SAMUEL. 145 

" What shall we do," inquired one of the elders 
" to obtain the favour of Allah ? " 

Samuel replied: " You shall worship Allah alone, 
and offer no sacrifices unto idols ; nor eat that which 
has died of itself, nor swine's flesh, nor blood, nor 
any thing that has not been slaughtered in the name 
of Allah. Assist each other in doing good, honour 
your parents, treat your wives with kindness, sup- 
port the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Believe 
in the prophets that have gone before me, especially 
in Abraham, for whom Allah turned the burning pile 
into a garden of delight ; in Ismael, whose neck 
he rendered invulnerable, and for whom he caused a 
fountain to spring up in the stony desert ; and in 
Moses, who opened with his rod twelve dry paths 
through the sea. 

" Believe, in like manner, in the prophets that shall 
come after me ; above all, in Isa Ibn Mariam, the 
spirit of Allah (Christ), and in Mohamed Ibn Abd 
Allah." 

"Who is Isa?" inquired one of the heads of 
Israel. 

" He is the prophet," replied Samuel, " whom the 
Scriptures point out as the Word of Allah. His 
mother shall conceive him as a virgin by the will of 
the Lord and the breath of the angel Gabriel. Even 
in the womb he shall praise the omnipotence of Allah, 
and testify to the purity of his mother : but at a 
later period he shall heal the sick and leprous, raise 



146 CHRIST AND MOHAMED. 

the dead, and create living birds out of clay. His 
godless contemporaries will afflict and attempt to 
crucify him; but Allah shall blind them, so that 
another shall be crucified in his stead ; while he, like 
the prophet Enoch, is taken up into heaven without 
tasting death." 

" And Mohamed, who is he ? " ' continued the 
same Israelite ; " his name sounds so strangely that 
I do not remember ever having heard it in Israel." 

"Mohamed," Samuel replied, "does not belong 
to our people, but is a descendant of Ismael, and the 
last and greatest prophet, to whom even Moses and 
Christ shall bow down in the day of the resur- 
rection. 

" His name, which signifies the e Much-praised-One,' 
indicates of itself the many excellencies for which he 
is blessed by all creatures both in heaven and on 
earth. 

" But the wonders which he shall perform are so 
numerous, that a whole human life would not suffice 
to narrate them. I shall content myself, therefore, 
with communicating to you but a part of what he 
shall see in one single night.* 

* The following narrative, which Samuel is made to utter, 
describes the Night-Journey of Mohamed. He revealed it 
to his followers in the 12th year of his mission; and though 
his Arabs were given to the marvellous, yet this staggered 
even their credulity, and would have proved his utter ruin but 
for the resolute interposition of Abu Bekr. — E. T. 



THE NIGHT- JO UENEY. 147 

" In a frightfully tempestuous night, when the 
cock refrains from crowing, and the hound from bay- 
ing, he shall be roused from his sleep by Gabriel, 
who frequently appears to him in human form ; but 
who on this occasion comes as Allah created him, 
with his seven hundred radiant wings, between each 
of which is a space which the fleetest steed can 
scarcely traverse in five hundred years. 

" He shall lead him forth to a spot where Borak, the 
miraculous horse, the same which Abraham used to 
mount on his pilgrimages from Syria to Mecca, stands 
ready to receive him. 

" This horse also has two wings like an eagle, feet 
like a dromedary ; a body of diamonds, which shines 
like the sun, and a head like the most beautiful 
virgin. 

"On this miraculous steed, on whose forehead 
is engraved 6 There is no Lord but Allah, and 
Mohamed is his messenger,' he is carried first to 
Medina, then to Sinai, to Bethlehem, and to Jeru- 
salem, that he may pray on holy ground. From 
thence he ascends by a golden ladder, whose steps are 
of ruby, of emerald, and hyacinth, into the seventh 
heaven, where he is initiated in all the mysteries 
of creation, and the government of the universe. 

" He beholds the pious amidst all their felicities in 
Paradise, and sinners in their varied agonies in hell. 
Many of them are roaming there like ravenous beasts 
through barren fields ; they are those who in this life 

H 2 



148 THE NIGHT-JOURNEY. 

enjoyed the bounties of Allah, and gave nothing 
thereof to the poor. 

" Others run to and fro, carrying fresh meat in one 
hand, and corroded flesh in the other ; but as often 
as they would put the former into their mouths, their 
hands are struck with fiery rods until they partake 
of the putrified morsel. This is the punishment of 
those who broke their marriage vow, and found plea- 
sure in guilty indulgences. 

" The bodies of others are terribly swollen, and are 
still increasing in bulk ; they are such as have grown 
rich by usury, and whose avarice was insatiable. 

" The tongues and lips of others are seized and 
pinched with iron pincers, as the punishment of their 
calumnious and rebellious speeches, by which they 
caused so much evil in the earth. 

"Midway between Paradise and hell is seated 
Adam, the father of the human race, who smiles with 
joy as often as the gates of Paradise are thrown open, 
and the triumphant cries of the blessed are borne forth; 
but weeps when the gates of hell are unclosed, and the 
sighs of the damned penetrate to his ear. 

(i In that night Mohamed beholds, besides Gabriel, 
other angels, many of whom have seventy thousand 
heads, each head with seventy thousand faces, each 
face with seventy thousand mouths, and each mouth 
with seventy thousand tongues, each of which praises 
Allah in seventy thousand languages. He sees, too, 
the Angel of Reconciliation, who is half fire and half 



THE NIGHT-JOURNEY. 149 

ice : the angel who watches with scow lino; visage 
and flaming eyes the treasuries of fire : the Angel of 
Death, holding in his hand a huge tablet, inscribed with 
names, of which he effaces hundreds every instant : 
the Angel who keeps the floods, and measures out 
with an immense balance the waters appointed unto 
every river and every fountain; and him, finally, 
who supports the throne of Allah on his shoulders^ 
and is holding a trumpet in his mouth, whose blast 
shall one day wake the sleepers from the grave. 

" He is at last conducted through many oceans of 
light, into the vicinity of the holy throne itself, which 
is so vast, that the rest of the universe appears by its 
side like the scales of a coat of armour in the bound- 
less desert. 

" That which shall be revealed to him there," con- 
tinued Samuel, "is as yet concealed from me ; but 
this I know : He shall gaze on the glory of Allah at 
the distance of a bow-shot ; shall then descend to 
earth by the ladder, and return on Borak to Mecca 
as rapidly as he came. 

" To accomplish this vast journey, including his 
stay in Medina, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and in 
heaven, he requires so little time, that a water-vase, 
which he overturns in rising from his couch, will not 
have emptied its contents at his return." 

The assembled Israelites listened attentively to 
Samuel, and when he had finished, they exclaimed 
with one voice, " We believe in Allah, and in his 
h 3 



150 SAUL. 

prophets which were and are to come; only pray 
that He may deliver us from the tyranny of Goliath. 

Samuel prayed and fasted till at length Allah sent 
an angel, who commanded him to go out of the 
city, and to proclaim the first man who should meet 
him king over Israel, since in his reign the Israelites 
should regain their independence from foreign bond- 
age. 

Samuel did as he was commanded, and met 
Talut [Saul], the son of Bishr, the son of Ahnun, 
the son of Benjamin, who was a husbandman of lofty 
stature, but not otherwise remarkable, though Allah 
had put much wisdom into his heart. 

He was wandering about in search of a heifer 
which had broken away from her plough and run at 
large. Samuel assisted him in her recovery, and then 
took Saul home with him, anointed him with oil, 
and presented him to the heads of Israel as their 
king and divinely commissioned deliverer. 

But they refused to accept as their king a common 
peasant, who hitherto had not distinguished him- 
self in any wise ; and they demanded a miracle. 

" Allah," replied Samuel, " will, in token of his 
ratifying this kingly election, restore to you the ark 
of the covenant." 

From that day the Philistines were visited with the 
most painful and disgusting leprosy, whose origin no 
physician could discover, and which no physician 
could cure. But as the plague fell most heavily 



PENANCE. 151 

on that city where the ark of the covenant, which had 
been carried in triumph from one place to another, 
happened to be, no one would retain it any longer, 
and it was at last left standing in a waggon in the 
open field. 

Allah then commanded two invisible angels to 
carry it back into the midst of the camp of Israel, 
who thereupon no longer hesitated to do fealty unto 
Saul as their king. 

As soon as he was elected, Saul mustered the host 
of Israel, and marched against the Philistines at the 
head of seventy thousand men. 

During their march through the wilderness, they 
were one day in want of water, so that a universal 
murmuring arose against Samuel and Saul. Samuel, 
who was following after the ark of the covenant, 
prayed to the Lord, and there sprung from out 
the rocky ground a fountain of water, which was 
as fresh as snow, as sweet as honey, and as white 
as milk. But when the soldiers came rushing to- 
wards it, Samuel cried, " You have grievously sinned 
against your king and against your God by reason 
of discontent and rebellion. Forbear to touch this 
water, that by abstinence you may atone for your 
sin ! " 

But Samuel's words met with no regard. Only 

three hundred and thirteen men, — as many as fought 

in the first engagement of the Mussulmans against 

the Infidels, — mastered their appetite, barely re~ 

h 4 



152 DAVID. 

f resiling themselves, while all the rest of the army 
yielded to the temptation, and drank in full draughts 
from the fountain. 

When Talut beheld this, he disbanded the whole 
army, and, relying on the aid of Allah, marched 
against the enemy with the small number of his 
men who had conquered their desire. 

Among this little band were six sons of a virtuous 
man whose name was Isa. Davud [David], his seventh 
son, had remained at home to nurse his aged father. 

But when for a long time no engagement took 
place between Israel and the Philistines, since no 
one had accepted the challenge to single combat 
with Goliath, by which a general battle was to be 
preceded, Isa sent also his seventh son into the 
camp, partly to carry fresh provisions to his brothers, 
and partly to bring him tidings of their welfare. 

On his way he heard a voice from a pebble which 
lay in the midst of the road, calling to him, " Lift 
me up, for I am one of the stones with which the 
prophet Abraham drove Satan away when he would 
have shaken his resolve to sacrifice his son in obe- 
dience to his heavenly vision." 

David placed the stone, which was inscribed with 
holy names, in the bag which he wore in his upper 
garment, for he was simply dressed like a traveller, 
and not as a soldier. 

When he had proceeded a little further, he again 
heard a voice from another pebble crying: "Take me 



GOLIATH. 153 

with thee, for I am the stone which the angel Gabriel 
struck out from the ground with his foot, when he 
caused a fountain to gush forth in the wilderness 
for Ismael's sake." 

David took this stone also, and laying it beside the 
first, went on his way. But soon he heard the 
following words proceeding from a third stone : " Lift 
me up ; for I am the stone with which Jacob fought 
against the angels which his brother Esau had sent 
out against him." 

David took this stone likewise, and continued his 
journey without interruption until he came to his 
brothers in the camp of Israel. On his arrival 
there, he heard how a herald proclaimed, " Whoever 
puts the giant Goliath to death shall become Saul's 
son-in-law, and succeed hereafter to his throne." 

David sought to persuade his brothers to venture 
the combat with Goliath, not to become the king's 
son-in-law and successor, but to wipe off the reproach 
that rested on their people. 

But since courage and confidence failed them, he 
went to Saul, and offered to accept the giant's chal- 
lenge. The king had but little hopes indeed that a 
tender youth, such as David then was, would defeat a 
warrior like Goliath ; yet he permitted the combat 
to take place, for he believed that even if he should 
fall, his reproachful example would excite some others, 
to imitate his heroic conduct. 

On the following morning, when Goliath, as usual, 
h 5 



154 saul's jealousy. 

challenged with proud speech the warriors of Israel, 
David, in his travelling apparel, and with his bag 
containing the three stones, stepped down into the 
arena. Goliath laughed aloud on seeing his youthful 
antagonist, and said to him, " Rather hie thee home 
to play with lads of thine own years. How wilt thou 
fight with me, seeing that thou art even unarmed ? " 

David replied, " Thou art as a dog unto me, whom 
one may best drive away with a stone ; " and before 
Goliath was yet able to draw his sword from its scab- 
bard, he took the three stones from his bag, pierced 
the giant with one of them, so that he instantly fell 
lifeless on the ground, and drove with the second the 
right wing of the Philistines into flight, and their left 
wing with the third. 

But Saul was jealous of David, whom all Israel 
extolled as their greatest hero, and refused to give 
him his daughter, until he brought the heads of a 
hundred giants as the marriage gift. But the greater 
David's achievements were, the more rancorous grew 
the envy of Saul, so that he even sought treacherously 
to slay him. David defeated all his plans ; but 
he never revenged himself, and Saul's hatred waxed 
greater by reason of this very magnanimity. 

One day he visited his daughter in David's 
absence, and threatened to put her to death, unless 
she gave him a promise, and confirmed it by the most 
sacred oaths, that she would deliver her husband 
unto him during the night. 



saul's jealousy. 155 

When the latter returned home, his wife met him 
in alarm, and related what had happened between her 
and her father. David said to her, " Be faithful to thy 
oath, and open the door of my chamber to thy father 
as soon as I shall be asleep. Allah will protect me 
even in my sleep, and give me the means of render- 
ing Saul's sword harmless, even as Abraham's weapon 
was impotent against Ismael, who yielded his neck 
to the slaughter. 

He then went into his forge, and prepared a coat 
of mail, which covered the whole upper part of his 
body from his neck downwards. This coat was as fine 
as a hair, and, clinging to him like silk, resisted 
every kind of weapon ; for David had been endowed, 
as a special favour from Allah, with the power of 
melting iron without fire, and of fashioning it like wax 
for every conceivable purpose, with no instrument 
but his hand. 

To him we are indebted for the ringed coat of 
mail, for up to his time armour consisted of simple 
iron plates. 

David was wrapt in the most peaceful slumber, 
when Saul, guided by his daughter, entered his 
chamber ; and it was not until his father-in-law hag- 
gled the impenetrable mail with his sword as with a 
saw, bearing on it with all his strength, that David 
awoke, tore the sword from his hand, and broke it in 
pieces, as if it had been a morsel of bread. 

But after this occurrence, he thought it no longer 
h 6 



156 SAUL AND DAVID RECONCILED. 

advisable to tarry with Saul, and therefore retired 
to the mountains, with a few of his friends and ad- 
herents. Saul made use of this pretext to have him 
suspected of the people, and at last, accusing him of 
treason, marched against him at the head of one thou- 
sand soldiers. But David was so endeared to the in- 
habitants of the mountain, and knew its hiding-places 
so well, that it was impossible for Saul to take him. 

One night, while Saul was asleep, David left a cave 
which was quite near to the king's encampment, and 
took the signet ring from his finger, together with his 
arms and a standard which were lying by his side. He 
then retreated through the cave, which had a double 
entrance, and the next morning appeared on the 
pinnacle of a mountain which stood opposite to the 
camp of the Israelites, having girt on Saul's huge 
sword, and waving his standard up and down, and 
stretching out his finger on which he had placed the 
king's ring. 

Saul, who could not understand how a thief could 
have penetrated into the midst of his well-guarded 
camp, recognised David and the articles which had 
been taken from him. This new proof of his dex- 
terity and magnanimous disposition overcame at last 
the king's envy and displeasure; he therefore dis- 
patched a messenger, who in the royal name begged 
forgiveness for all the grievances he had inflicted, 
and invited David to return to his home. 

David was overjoyed at a reconciliation with his 



THE ROYAL SINGER, 157 

father-in-law, and they now lived together in peace 
and harmony until Saul was slain, in a disastrous en- 
gagement with the Philistines. 

After Saul's death, David was unanimously elected 
king of Israel, and by the help of Allah, he soon re- 
conquered the Philistines, and extended the bound- 
aries of his kingdom far and wide. 

But David was not only a brave warrior and a 
wise king, but likewise a great prophet. Allah re- 
vealed to him seventy psalms, and endowed him with 
a voice such as no mortal possessed before him. In 
height and depth, in power and melody combined, no 
human voice had ever equalled it. He could imitate 
the thunders of heaven and the roar of the lion, as 
well as the delicious notes of the nightingale ; nor was 
there any other musician or singer in Israel as long as 
David lived, because no one who had once heard him 
could take pleasure in any other performance. Every 
third day he prayed with the congregation, and sung 
the psalms in a chapel which was hewn out of the 
mountain-rocks. Then not only all men assembled 
to hear him, but even beasts and birds came from afar, 
attracted by his wonderful song. 

One day, as he was on his return from prayer, he 
heard two of his subjects contending, which of the 
two was the greater prophet, Abraham or himself. 
" Was not Abraham," said the one, " saved from the 
burning pile ? " " Has not David," replied the other, 
"slain the giant Djalut?" "But what has David 



158 PRESUMPTION AND PALL. 

achieved, 5 ' resumed the first, "that might be com- 
pared with Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his 
son?" 

As soon as David came home, he fell down before 
Allah and prayed : " Lord, who hast proved on the 
pile, Abraham's fidelity and obedience, grant unto 
me too an opportunity to show unto my people that 
my love to thee withstands every temptation." 

David's prayer was heard : when three days after- 
wards he ascended his pulpit, he perceived a bird of such 
beautiful plumage, that it attracted his whole atten- 
tion, and he followed it with his eyes to every corner 
of the chapel, and to the trees and shrubs beyond. 
He sung fewer psalms than he was wont to do ; his 
voice failed him as often as he lost sight of this 
graceful bird, and grew soft and playful in the most 
solemn parts of the worship whenever it re-appeared. 

At the close of the prayers, which, to the astonish- 
ment of the whole assembly, were concluded on this 
occasion several hours sooner than usual, he followed 
the bird, which flew from tree to tree, until he 
found himself, at sunset, on the margin of a little 
lake. The bird disappeared in the lake ; but David 
soon forgot it, for in its stead there rose up a female 
form, whose beauty dazzled him like the clearest mid- 
day sun. He inquired her name : it was Saja, the 
daughter of Josu, the wife of Uriah Ibn Haman, 
who was with the army. David departed, and on his 
return commanded the chief of his troops to appoint 



REBUKE. 159 

Uriah to the most dangerous post in the van-guard of 
the army. His command was executed, and soon 
afterwards the death of Uriah was reported. David 
then wooed his widow, and married her at the expira- 
tion of the prescribed time. 

On the day after his marriage, there appeared, at 
Allah's command, Gabriel and Michael in human 
form before David, and Gabriel said — "The man 
whom thou seest here before thee is the owner of 
ninety-nine sheep, while I possess an only one ; never- 
theless he pursues me without ceasing, and demands 
that I should give up my only sheep to him." 

w Thy demand is unreasonable," said David, " and 
betrays an unbelieving heart, and a rude disposition." 

But Gabriel interrupted him, saying, "Many a 
noble and accomplished believer permits himself more 
unjust things than this." 

David now perceived this to be an allusion to his con- 
duct towards Uriah ; and filled with wrath, he grasped 
his sword*, and would have plunged it into Gabriel, 

* The Scriptures teach that David acknowledged his sin on 
Nathan's reproof. The whole narrative is so beautiful, that we 
subjoin it, as given in 2 Sam. xii. 1 — 8, 13. 

" And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto 
him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city ; the 
one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding 
many flocks and herds : But the poor man had nothing, save 
one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up : 
and it grew up together with him, and with his children ; it did 
eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his 



180 PENITENCE. 

but Michael gave a loud laugh of scorn, and when 
Gabriel and himself had ascended above David's head 
on their angels' wings, he said to David, " Thou hast 
pronounced thine own sentence, and called thy act 
that of a barbarous infidel : Allah will therefore be- 
stow upon thy son a portion of the power which he 
had originally intended for thee. Thy guilt is so much 
the greater, since thou prayedst that thou mightest be 
led into temptation without having the power of 
resisting it." 

At these words the angels vanished through the 
ceiling ; but David felt the whole burden of his sin. 
He tore the crown from his head, and the royal purple 
from his body, and wandered through the wilderness 
wrapt in simple woollen garments, and pining with 
remorse, weeping so bitterly, that his skin fell from 

bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a 
traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own 
flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that 
was come unto him ; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed 
it for the man that was come to him. And David's anger was 
greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As 
the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely 
die ; And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did 
this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to 
David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 
I anointed thee king over Israel and I delivered thee out of the 
hand of Saul ; And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy 
master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of 
Israel and of Judah ; and if that had been too little, I would 
moreover have given unto thee such and such things. 

" And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the 
Lord." 



ABSALOM. 161 

his face, and that the angels in heaven had compassion 
on him, and implored for him the mercy of Allah. 
But it was not until he had spent three full years in 
penitence and contrition, that he heard a voice from 
heaven, which announced to him that the All-compas- 
sionate Allah had at length opened the gate of 
mercy. Pacified and strengthened by these words of 
consolation, David soon recovered his physical powers 
and his blooming appearance, so that on his return to 
Palestine no one observed in him the slightest change. 

But during the king's long absence many of the 
rabble, whom he had banished, gathered round his 
son Absalom, and made him king over Israel. He 
was therefore compelled, as Absalom would not 
renounce the throne, to make war against him. But 
no engagement took place, for when the prince was 
about to join his forces, Allah commanded the Angel 
of Death to take him from his horse and hang hirn 
on a tree by his long hair, that to all future time 
rebellious sons might take warning by his fate. Ab- 
salom remained hanging there until one of David's 
chieftains passed by and slew him with the sword. 
But although David soon came to be esteemed and 
beloved by his people as before, yet, mindful of what 
had taken place with the two angels, he ventured not 
again to execute judgment. He had already nomi- 
nated a kadhi, who was to adjust in his stead, all 
disputes that might arise, when the angel Gabriel 
brought him an iron tube with a bell 3 and said ; — 



162 THE TRIBUNAL. 

" Allah has beheld thy diffidence with pleasure, and 
therefore sends thee this tube and bell, by means of 
which it will be easy for thee to maintain the law in 
Israel, and never to pronounce an unjust sentence. 
Suspend this tube in thy hall of judgment, and hang 
the bell in the midst thereof: place the accuser on 
one side of it, and the accused on the other, and always 
pronounce judgment in favour of him, who on touch- 
ing the tube elicits a sound from the bell. David 
was greatly delighted at this gift, by means of which 
he who was in the right was sure to triumph : so that 
soon no one dared to commit any injustice, since he 
was certain to be detected by the bell. 

One day, however, there came two men before the 
judgment-seat, one of whom maintained that he had 
given a pearl into the keeping of the other, who now 
refused to restore it. The defendant on the other hand 
swore that he had already given it back. As usual, 
David compelled them both, one after the other, to 
touch the tube ; but the bell uttered no sound, so that 
he did not know which of the two spoke truth, and 
was inclined to doubt the further virtue of the bell. 
But when he had repeatedly directed both to touch 
the tube, he observed that as often as the accused 
was to pass the ordeal, he gave his staff to be 
holden by his antagonist. David now took the staff 
in his own hand, and sent the accused once more 
to touch the tube, when instantly the bell began 
to ring aloud. David then caused the staff to 



SOLOMON". 163 

be inspected, and behold it was hollow, and the 
pearl in question was concealed within it. But on 
account of his thus doubting the value of the tube 
which Allah had given him, it was again re- 
moved to heaven : so that David frequently erred in 
his decisions, until Solomon, whom his wife Saja, 
the daughter of Josu, had borne him, aided him 
with his counsel. In him David placed implicit 
confidence, and was guided by him in the most diffi- 
cult questions, for he had heard in the night of his 
birth the angel Gabriel exclaim — " Satan's domi- 
nion is drawing to its close, for this night a child is 
born, to whom Iblis and all his hosts, together with 
all his descendants shall be subject. The earth, air, and 
water, with all the creatures that live therein, shall 
be his servants : he shall be gifted with nine- tenths 
of all the wisdom and knowledge which Allah has 
granted unto mankind, and understand not only all 
the languages of men, but those also of beasts and of 
birds." 

One day — Solomon was then scarcely thirteen years 
of age — there appeared two men before the tribunal, 
the novelty of whose case excited the astonishment 
of all present, and even greatly confounded David. 
The accuser had bought some property of the other, 
and in clearing out a cellar, had found a treasure. 
He now demanded that the accused should give up 
the treasure, since he had bought the property with- 
out it : while the other maintained that the accuser 



164 DECISIONS. 

possessed no right to the treasure, since lie had 
known nothing of it, and had sold the property with all 
that it contained. After long meditation, David ad- 
judged that the treasure should be divided between 
them. But Solomon inquired of the accuser whether 
he had a son, and when he replied that he had a son, 
he inquired of the other if he had a daughter, and he 
also answering in the affirmative, Solomon said, " If 
you will adjust your strife so as not to do injustice 
one to the other, unite your children in marriage, 
and give them this treasure as their dowry." 

On another occasion, there came a husbandman and 
accused a shepherd whose flock had pastured on the 
grain of his field. David sentenced the shepherd to 
give part of his flock in restitution to the husband- 
man ; but Solomon disapproved of this judgment, 
and said, " Let the shepherd give up to the husband- 
man the use of his flock, their work, their milk, 
and their young ones, until the field shall be restored 
to the condition in which it was at the time of the 
flock's breaking in, when the sheep shall once more 
return to their owner." 

David, however, one day observed that the high 
tribunal over which he presided beheld with dis- 
pleasure the interference of Solomon in their trans- 
actions, although they were obliged to confess that 
his views were always better than their own. The 
king therefore demanded of them to examine Solomon 
in the face of all the great and noble men of his kingdom, 



THE EXAMINEES EXAMINED. 165 

in all the doctrines and laws of Moses. " If you have 
satisfied yourselves," he added, (i that rny son knows 
these perfectly, and consequently never pronounces 
an unjust judgment, you must not slight him by 
reason of his youth, if his views regarding the appli- 
cation of the law often differ from mine and yours. 
Allah bestows wisdom on whomsoever he pleaseth." 

The lawyers were, indeed, persuaded of Solomon's 
erudition; nevertheless, hoping to confound him by 
all manner of subtle questions, and thus to increase 
their own importance, they accepted David's proposal, 
and made arrangements for a public examination. 
But their expectations were disappointed ; for before 
the last word of any question put to Solomon was yet 
pronounced, he had already given a striking answer, so 
that all present firmly believed that the whole matter 
had been arranged beforehand with his judges, and that 
this examination was instituted by David merely to re- 
commend Solomon as his worthy successor to the throne. 
But Solomon at once effaced this suspicion when at 
the close of this examination he arose, and said to his 
judges, (( You have exhausted yourselves in subtleties 
in the hope of manifesting your superiority over me 
before this great assembly ; permit me now, also, to 
put to you a few very simple questions, the solution 
of which needs no manner of study, but only a little 
intellect and understanding. Tell me what is Every- 
thing, and what is Nothing. Who is Something, and 
who is less than Nothing." Solomon waited long; 



166 THE EXAMINERS EXAMINED. 

and when the judge whom he had addressed was not 
able to answer, he said, " Allah, the Creator, is Every- 
thing, but the world, the creature, is Nothing. The 
believer is Something, but the hypocrite is less than 
Nothing." Turning to another, Solomon inquired, 
" Which are the most in number, and which the 
fewest ? What is sweetest, and what most bitter? " but 
as the second judge also was unable to find a proper 
answer to these questions, Solomon said, " The most 
numerous are the doubters, and they who possess a 
perfect assurance of faith are the fewest in number. 
The sweetest is the possession of a virtuous wife, ex- 
cellent children, and a respectable competency ; but a 
wicked wife, undutiful children, and poverty are the 
most bitter." Finally, Solomon put the following ques- 
tions to a third judge, " Which is the vilest, and which 
the most beautiful? What the most certain, and 
what the least so ? " But these questions also 
remained unanswered, until Solomon said, " The 
vilest thing is when a believer apostatises, and the most 
beautiful when a sinner repents. The most certain 
thing is Death and the Last Judgment, and the most 
uncertain, Life and the Fate of the Soul after the 
resurrection. " You perceive," he then continued, " it 
is not the oldest and most learned that are always 
the wisest. True wisdom is neither of years nor of 
learned books, but only of Allah, the All- wise." 

Solomon excited by his words the greatest astonish- 
ment in all that were present ; and the heads of the 



david's last wish. 167 

people exclaimed with one voice, " Blessed be the 
Lord, who has given to our king a son who in 
wisdom surpasses all the men of his time, and who 
is worthy one day to sit on the throne of his father ! " 

David, in like manner, thanked Allah for the grace 
which he had shown to him in Solomon, and now only 
desired, before his death, to meet with his future 
companion in Paradise. 

" Thy request is granted ! " cried a voice from 
heaven ; " but thou must go and seek him alone ; and, 
in order to reach his presence, thou must renounce 
thy earthly pomp, and wander as a poor pilgrim 
through the world." 

The next day David nominated Solomon as his re- 
presentative, laid aside his royal robes, wrapped him- 
self round with a simple woollen garment, put on his 
sandals, took a staif in his hand, and left his palace. 
He now wandered from city to city, and from village 
to village, inquiring every where for such of the in- 
habitants as were most distinguished for piety, and 
endeavouring to make their acquaintance ; but for 
many weeks he found no one whom he had reason to 
consider as his destined companion in the life to come. 

One day, on reaching a village on the shores of the 
Mediterranean ocean, there arrived at the same time 
with him a poorly clad aged man, who was car- 
rying a heavy burden of wood on his head. The 
appearance of the hoary man was so venerable, that 
David followed him, to see where he lived. But he 



168 THE HERMIT. 

entered into no house at all, and sold his wood to a 
merchant who stood at the door of his warehouse, 
then gave to a poor man who begged him for alms 
the half of the little money which t he had earned, 
bought with the rest a small loaf of bread, of which 
also he gave a large portion to a blind woman, who 
implored the compassion of the faithful, and then 
returned on his way to the mountain from whence he 
had come. " This man," thought David, " might well 
be my companion in Paradise ; for his venerable 
appearance and his actions which I have just wit- 
nessed, testify to a rare piety. I must therefore 
seek to become better acquainted with him," He 
then followed the aged man at some distance, until, 
after a march of several hours over steep mountains, 
crossed by deep ravines, the latter entered into a cave, 
which admitted the light of heaven through a crevice 
of the rock. David remained standing at the en- 
trance of the cave, and heard how the hermit prayed 
fervently, and then read the law and the psalms, 
until the sun had set. He then lit a lamp, and pro- 
nounced the evening prayer, drew from his bag 
the bread which he had bought, and consumed about 
half thereof. 

David, who had hitherto not ventured to disturb 
the man in his devotions, now stepped into the cave, 
and greeted him. 

" Who art thou ? " said the other, after having 
returned the salutation ; " for, save the GoD-f earing 



THE COMPANION IN PARADISE. 169 

Mata Ibn Juhanna, king David's future companion 
in Paradise, I never saw any human being in these 
regions." 

David gave his name, and begged for further par- 
ticulars respecting Mata. 

But the hermit replied, " I am not permitted to 
point out to thee his dwelling ; but if thou searchest 
this mountain with attention, it cannot escape thee." 

David now wandered up and down for a long time, 
without finding any traces of Mata. He was on the 
point of returning to the hermit, in hopes of obtain- 
ing better directions, when, on an eminence, in the 
midst of the rocky ground, he discovered a spot 
which was quite moist and soft, (( How singular," 
thought he, "that just here, on this pinnacle of a moun- 
tain, the ground should thus he moistened ! Surely 
there can be no fountain here ! " While he was thus 
standing absorbed in thought respecting this remark- 
able phenomenon, there descended on the other side 
of the mountain a man who was more like an angel 
than a human being ; his looks were cast down to the 
earth, so that he did not observe David ; but on the 
moistened spot he stood still, and prayed with such 
fervency that his tears gushed like streams from his 
eyes. David now understood how it came to pass 
that the earth was so soaked, and thought — " A 
man who thus worships his God may well be my 
companion in Paradise." But he presumed not to 
address him till he heard how, among other things, 

I 



170 DEATH OF DAVID. 

he prayed, " My God, pardon the sin of king David, 
and preserve him from further transgression! Be 
merciful to him for my sake, since thou hast des- 
tined me to be his companion in Paradise." 

David now went towards him, but on reaching his 
presence, he was dead. 

He dug up the soft earth with his staff, washed 
him with the water that remained in his bottle, 
buried him, and pronounced over him the prayer of 
death. He then returned to his capital, and found in 
liis harem the Angel of Death, who received him with 
the words, " Allah has granted unto thee thy request, 
but now thy life is ended." 

" God's will be done ! " replied David, and fell 
lifeless to the earth. 

Gabriel then descended to comfort Solomon, and 
to bring him a heavenly robe, in which he was to wrap 
his father. All Israel followed his remains to the 
entrance of the cave where Abraham lies buried. 



171 



SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SABA. 

After Solomon had paid the last honours to his 
father, he was resting in a valley, between Hebron 
and Jerusalem, when suddenly he swooned away. 
On reviving there appeared to him eight angels, each 
of whom had immeasurable wings of every colour 
and form, and thrice they bowed down to him. 
" Who are you ? " demanded Solomon, while his eyes 
were yet half closed. They replied, "We are the 
angels set over the eight winds. Allah, our Creator 
and thine, sends us to swear fealty, and to surrender 
to thee the power over us and the eight winds which 
are at our command According to thy pleasure and 
designs they shall either be tempestuous or gentle, 
and shall blow from that quarter to which thou 
shalt turn thy back ; and at thy demand they shall 
rise out of the earth to bear thee up, and to raise 
thee above the loftiest mountains." The most exalted 
of the eight angels then presented to him a jewel with 
this inscriptions "To Allah belong greatness and 
might : " and said, " If thou hast need of us, raise 
this stone towards heaven, and we shall appear to 
serve thee." As soon as these angels had left him^ 
i 2 



172 THE EXTENT OF SOLOMON'S DOMINION, 

there came four others, differing from each other in 
form and name. One of them resembled an immense 
whale ; the other, an eagle ; the third, a lion ; and the 
fourth, a serpent. " We are the lords of all creatures 
living in earth and water," they said, bowing profoundly 
to Solomon, u and appear before thee at the command 
of our Lord to do fealty unto thee. Dispose of us at 
thy pleasure. We grant to thee and to thy friends all 
the good and pleasant things with which the Creator 
has endowed us, but use all the noxious that is in our 
power against thy foes." The angel who represented 
the kingdom of birds then gave him a jewel with the 
inscription " All created things praise the Lord;" and 
said, "by virtue of this stone, which thou needest 
only to raise above thy head, thou mayest call us at 
any moment, and impart to us thy commands. Solo- 
mon did so instantly, and commanded them to bring 
a pair of every kind of animal that live in the water, 
the earth, and the air, and to present them to him. 
The angels departed quick as lightning, and in the 
twinkling of an eye there were standing before him 
every imaginable creature, from the largest elephant 
down to the smallest worm; also all kinds of fish 
and birds. Solomon caused each of them to describe 
its whole manner of life — he listened to their com- 
plaints, and abolished many of their abuses. But 
he conversed longest with the birds, both on account 
of their delicious language, which he knew as well 
as his own, as also for the beautiful proverbs that 



THE EXTENT OP SOLOMON'S DOMINION. 173 

are current among them. The song of the peacock, 
translated into human language, means, " As thou 
judgest, so shalt thou be judged." The song of the 
nightingale signifies, " Contentment is the greatest 
happiness." The turtle-dove sings, " It were better 
for many a creature had it never been born." The 
hoopo, " He that shows no mercy shall not obtain 
mercy." The bird syrdak, ee Turn to Allah, O ye sin- 
ners." The swallow, " Do good, for you shall be 
rewarded hereafter." The pelican, " Blessed be 
Allah in heaven and earth ! " The dove, " All 
things pass away : Allah alone is eternal." The 
kata, " Whosoever can keep silence goes through life 
most securely." The eagle, " Let our life be ever so 
long, yet it must end in death." The raven, " The 
further from mankind the pleasant er." The cock, 
" Ye thoughtless men, remember your Creator." 

Solomon chose the cock and the hoopo for his con- 
stant attendants. The one, on account of his moni- 
tory sentence, and the other, inasmuch as his eyes, 
piercing as they do through the earth as if it were 
crystal, enabled him during the travels of the king to 
point out the places where fountains of water were 
hid, so that water never failed Solomon, either to 
quench his thirst, or to perform the prescribed ablu- 
tions before prayer. But after having stroked the 
heads of the doves, he commanded them to appoint 
unto their young the temple which he was about to 
erect,, as their habitation. (This pigeon pair had, in 

I 3 



174 THE EXTENT OF SOLOMON'S DOMINION. 

the course of a few years, increased so much, through 
Solomon's blessed touch, that all who visited the tem- 
ple walked from the remotest quarter of the city 
under the shadow of their wings.) 

When Solomon was again alone, there appeared an 
angel, whose upper part looked like earth, and whose 
lower like water. He bowed down towards the 
earth, and said, " I am created by Allah to manifest his 
will both to the dry land and to the sea ; but he has 
placed me at thy disposal, and thou mayest command, 
through me, over earth and sea: at thy will the 
highest mountains shall disappear, and others rise 
out of the ground; rivers and seas shall dry up, 
and fruitful countries be turned into seas or oceans." 
He then presented to him before he vanished a jewel, 
with the inscription, ec Heaven and earth are the ser- 
vants of Allah." 

Finally, another angel brought to him a fourth 
jewel, which bore the inscription, " There is no God 
but one, and Mohamed is his messenger." "By 
means of this stone," said the angel, " thou obtainest 
the dominion over the kingdom of spirits, which is 
much greater than that of man and beasts, and fills 
up the whole space between the earth and heaven. 
Part of these spirits," continued the angel, " believe 
in the only God, and pray to him; but others are 
unbelieving. Some adore the fire ; others the sun ; 
others again the different stars ; and many even the 
water. The first continually hover round the pious* 



THE MAGIC RING. 175 

to preserve them from every evil and sin; but 
the latter seek in every possible manner to torment 
and to seduce them, which they do the more easily 
since they render themselves invisible, or assume any 
form they please." Solomon desired to see the genii 
in their original form. The angel rushed like a 
column of fire through the air, and soon returned with 
a host of demons and genii, whose appalling appear- 
ance filled Solomon, spite of his dominion over them, 
with an inward shudder. He had had no idea that there 
were such misshapen and frightful beings in the world. 
He saw human heads on the necks of horses, with 
asses' feet; the wings of eagles on the dromedary's 
back ; and the horns of the gazelle on the head of the 
peacock. Astonished at this singular union, he prayed 
the angel to explain it to him, since Djan, from whom 
all the genii were descended, had only a simple form. 
" This is the consequence," replied the angel, "-of 
their wicked Eves and their shameless intercourse with 
men, beasts, and birds: for their desires know no 
bounds, and the more they multiply the more they 
degenerate*" 

When Solomon returned home, he commanded the 
four jewels which the angels had given him to be 
set in a signet ring, in order that he might be able 
at any moment to rule over spirits and animals, 
and over wind and water. His first care was to sub- 
due the demons and genii. He caused them all to 
come before him, save the mighty Sachr, who kept 

i 4 



176 FEEDING ALL THE CREATURES OF THE EARTH, 

himself concealed in an unknown island of the ocean, 
and Iblis, the master of all evil spirits, to whom God 
had promised the most perfect independence till the 
day of judgment. When they were assembled, he 
stamped his signet ring on each of their necks, to 
mark them as his slaves. He obliged the male 
genii to erect various public buildings; among others, 
also a temple after the plan of that at Mecca, which 
he had once seen during his travels to Arabia. The 
female genii he obliged to cook, to bake, to wash, to 
weave, to spin, to carry water, and to perform other 
domestic labours. The stuffs they produced, Solomon 
distributed among the poor ; and the food which they 
prepared, was placed on tables of two leagues square* 
for the daily consumption amounted to thirty thousand 
oxen, and as many sheep, with a great number of 
fowls and fish, of which he could obtain as many as 
he chose by virtue of his ring, notwithstanding his 
remoteness from the ocean. The genii and demons 
sat at iron tables, the poor at tables of wood, the chiefs 
of the people and of the army at tables of silver; 
but the learned and eminently pious at golden ones, 
and the latter were waited on by Solomon himself. 

One day, when all the spirits, men, beasts, and 
birds, had risen, satisfied, from their various tables, 
Solomon prayed to Allah that he might permit him 
to entertain all the creatures of the earth. 

" Thou demandest an impossibility," replied Allah ; 
" but make a beginning to-morrow with the inhabit- 
ants of the sea." ; : 



AND THE SEA. 177 

Solomon, thereupon, commanded the genii to load 
with corn one hundred thousand camels, and as many 
mules, and to lead them to the sea-shore. He himself 
followed and cried, " Come hither, ye inhabitants of 
the sea, that I may satisfy your hunger." Then came 
all kinds of fish to the surface of the sea. Solomon 
flung corn unto them, till they were satisfied, and 
dived down again. On a sudden, a whale protruded his 
head, resembling a mighty mountain. Solomon made 
his flying spirits to pour one sack of corn after the 
other into its jaws ; but it continued its demand for 
more, until not a single grain was left. Then it 
bellowed aloud, "Feed me, Solomon, for I never 
suffered so much from hunger as to-day." 

Solomon inquired of it — " Whether there were 
more fish of the kind in the sea ? " 

" There are of my species alone," replied the whale, 
" seventy thousand kinds, the least of which is so 
large, that thou wouldst appear in its body like a 
grain of sand in the wilderness." 

Solomon threw himself on the ground, and began 
to weep, and besought the Lord to pardon his sense- 
less demand. 

"My kingdom," cried Allah to him, "is still 
greater than thine: arise, and behold but one of those 
creatures whose rule I cannot confide to man." 

Then the sea began to rage and to storm, as if all 
the eight winds had set it in motion at once ; and 
there rose up a sea monster, so huge, that it could 
i 5 



178 SACHR. 

easily have swallowed seventy thousand like the first, 
which Solomon was not able to satisfy, and cried 
with a voice like the most terrible thunder — "Praised 
be Allah, who alone has the power to save me from 
starvation ! " 

When Solomon was returning again to Jerusalem, 
he heard such a noise, proceeding from the constant 
hammering of the genii who were occupied with the 
building of the temple, that the inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem were no longer able to converse with each 
other. He therefore commanded the spirits to sus- 
pend their labours, and inquired whether none 
of them was acquainted with a means by which the 
various metals might be wrought without producing 
such a clamour. Then there stepped out one from 
among them, and said, " This is known only to the 
mighty Sachr; but he has hitherto succeeded in 
escaping from thy dominion." 

"Is, then, this Sachr utterly inaccessible?" in- 
quired Solomon. 

" Sachr," replied the genius, " is stronger than all 
of us put together, and is as much our superior in 
swiftness as in power. Still, I know that he drinks 
from a fountain in the province of Hidjr once in every 
month. Perhaps thou mayest succeed, O wise 
king ! to subdue him there to thy sceptre." 

Solomon commanded forthwith a division of his 
swift-flying genii to empty the fountain, and to fill it 
with intoxicating liquor. Some of them he then 



THE MOTHER BIRD* 179 

ordered to linger in its vicinity, until they should see 
Sachr approaching, and then instantly to return and 
bring him word. A few weeks afterwards, when 
Solomon was standing on the terrace of his palace, he 
beheld a genius flying from the direction of Hidjr 
swifter than the wind. The king inquired of him if 
he brought news respecting Sachr. 

" Sachr is lying overcome with wine at the brink 
of the fountain," replied the genius, ee and we have 
bound him with chains as massive as the pillars of 
thy temple ; but he will burst them asunder as the 
hair of a virgin when he has slept oif his wine." 

Solomon then mounted hastily the winged genius, 
and in less than an hour was borne to the fountain. It 
was high time, for Sachr had already opened his eyes 
again ; but his hands and feet were still chained, so 
that Solomon set the signet on his neck without any 
hindrance. Sachr uttered such a cry of woe that the 
whole earth quaked ; but Solomon said to him, " Fear 
not, mighty genius ! I will restore thee to liberty as 
soon as thou shalt indicate the means whereby I may 
work the hardest metals without noise." 

" I myself know of no such," replied Sachr ; " but 
the raven will best be able to advise thee. Take only 
the eggs from a raven's nest, and cover them with a 
crystal bowl, and thou shalt see how the mother-bird 
shall cut it through." 

Solomon followed Sachr's advice. A raven came 
and flew about the bowl ; but finding that she could 

i 6 



180 YISIT TO DAMASCUS. 

not get access to the eggs, she flew away, and a few 
hours afterwards re-appeared with a stone in her 
beak, called Samur; which had no sooner touched 
the bowl than it fell in two halves. 

" Whence hast thou this stone ? " inquired Solo- 
mon of the raven. 

"From a mountain in the distant west," replied 
the raven. 

Solomon then commanded some of the genii to 
follow the raven to the mountain, and to procure 
more of these stones. But Sachr he set free again, 
according to his promise. When the chains were, 
taken from him, he shouted with exultation ; but his 
joy sounded in Solomon's ear like the laughter, of 
scorn. As soon as the spirits returned with the Sa- 
mur stones, he caused himself to be carried back to 
Jerusalem by one of them, and divided the stones 
among the genii, who could now continue their la- 
bours without making the slightest noise. 

Solomon then constructed a palace for himself, 
with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones, 
the like of which no king had ever possessed before 
him. Many of its halls had crystal floors and ceil- 
ings, and he erected a throne of sandal-wood covered, 
with gold and embossed with the most costly jewels. 
While the building of his palace was in progress, he 
made a journey to the ancient city of Damascus,, 
whose environs are reckoned among the four earthly 
paradises. 



THE ANTS. 181 

The genius on whom he rode pursued the straight- 
est course, and flew over the valley of ants, which is 
surrounded by such lofty cliffs and deep impassable 
ravines that no man had been able to enter it before. 

Solomon was much astonished to see beneath him 
a host of ants, which were as large as wolves, and, 
which, owing to their grey eyes and feet, appeared at 
a distance like a cloud. 

But, on the other hand, the queen of the ants, which 
had never seen a human being, was in no small 
trouble on perceiving the king, and cried to her sub- 
jects, " Retire quickly to your caverns ! " 

But Allah said to her, " Assemble all thy vassals, 
and do homage to Solomon, who is king of the 
whole creation." 

Solomon, to whom the winds had wafted these 
words, then, at a distance of six leagues, descended 
to the queen, and in a short time the whole valley 
was covered with ants as far as his eye could reach. 
Solomon then asked the queen, who was standing at 
their head, " Why fearest thou me, since thy hosts 
are so numerous that they could lay waste the whole 
earth?" 

" I fear none but Allah," replied the queen ; " for 
if my subjects which thou now beholdest were threat- 
ened with danger, seventy times their number would 
appear at a single nod from me." 

" Why, then, didst thou command thy ants to 
retire while I was passing above thee ? " 



182 THE SHOOTING- STAR. 

" Because I feared lest they might look after thee, 
and thus forget their Creator for a moment." 

" Is there any favour that I may show thee ere I 
depart?" inquired Solomon. 

" I know of none : but rather let me advise thee so 
to live that thou mayst not be ashamed of thy name, 
which signifies ( The Immaculate ; ' beware also of 
ever giving away thy ring without first saying, ' In 
the name of Allah the All-merciful.' " 

Solomon once more exclaimed, " Lord, thy king- 
dom is greater than mine ! " and took leave of the 
queen of ants. 

On his return he commanded the genius to fly into 
another direction, so as not to disturb the devotions 
of the queen and her subjects. 

On arriving at the frontiers of Palestine he heard 
how some one prayed : 

" My God, who hast chosen Abraham to be thy 
friend, redeem me soon from this woeful existence ! ■*? 

Solomon descended to him, and beheld an aged 
man bowed down with years, and trembling in all his 
limbs. 

"Who art thou?" 

u I am an Israelite of the tribe of Judah." 

"How old art thou?" 

" Allah alone knows. I counted up to my three 
hundredth year, and since that time full fifty or sixty 
more must have passed away." 

" How earnest thou to so great an age, which, 



THE TREE OF LIFE. 183 

since Abraham's time, no human being has at* 
tained ? " 

u I once saw a shooting star in the night of A1- 
Kadr, and expressed the senseless wish that I might 
meet with the mightiest prophet before I died." 

" Thou hast now reached the goal of thy expecta- 
tions : prepare thyself to die, fox I am the king and 
prophet Solomon, to whom Allah has granted a 
power such as no mortal before me ever possessed." 
Scarcely had he finished these words, when the Angel 
of Death descended in human form, and took the soul 
of the aged man. 

" Thou must have been quite close to me, since 
thou earnest so promptly," said Solomon to the angel. 

e< How great is thy mistake ! Be it known to 
thee, O king ! that I stand on the shoulders of an 
angel whose head reaches ten thousand years beyond 
the seventh heaven, whose feet are five hundred 
years below the earth, and who, withal, is so power- 
ful that if Allah permitted it, he could swallow the 
earth, and all that it contains, without the slightest 
eifort. 

" He it is who points out to me when, where, and 
how I must take a soul. His gaze is fixed on the 
tree Sidrat Almuntaha, which bears as many leaves 
inscribed with names as there are men living on the 
earth. 

" At each birth a new leaf, bearing the name of 
the newly born, bursts forth ; and when any one has 



184 THE DEAD. 

reached the end of his life, his leaf withers and falls 
off, and at the same instant I am with him to receive 
his soul." 

"How dost thou proceed in this matter, and 
whither takest thou the souls at death ? " 

<( As often as a believer dies, Gabriel attends me 
and wraps his soul in a green silken sheet, and then 
breathes it into a green bird which feeds in Paradise 
until the day of the resurrection. But the soul of 
the sinner I take alone, and having wrapt it in 
a coarse pitch-covered woollen cloth, I carry it to the 
gates of hell, where it wanders among abominable- 
vapours until the last day." 

Solomon thanked the angel for his information, 
and besought him, when he should one day come to 
take his soul, to conceal his death from all men and 
spirits. 

He then washed the body of the deceased, buried 
him, and having prayed for his soul, begged for a 
mitigation of his bodily pains at the trial he was to 
undergo before the angels Ankir and Munkir.* 

This journey had fatigued Solomon so much, that 
he ordered the genii, on his return to Jerusalem, to 
weave strong silken carpets, which might contain him 

* These two angels make inquiry of the dead concerning his 
God and his faith, and torment him if he be not able to answer 
properly. 

Similar things are said in the " Chibut hakebar " (knocking at 
the tomb) of the Rabbis. — Compare Maraccius, Prodrom. § iii. 
p. 90. 



THE CARPET. 185 

and his followers together with all the requisite uten- 
sils and equipages for travelling. Whenever he 
desired thereafter to make a journey, he caused one 
of these carpets of a larger or smaller size, accord- 
ing to the number of his attendants, to be spread out 
before the city, and as soon as all that he required was 
placed upon it, he gave a signal to the eight winds to 
raise it up. He then seated himself on his throne, 
and guided them into whatever direction he pleased, 
even as a man guides his horses with bit and reins. 

One night Abraham appeared to him in a dream, 
and said, "Allah has distinguished thee above all other 
men by thy wisdom and power. He has subjected to 
thy rule the genii, who are erecting a temple at thy 
command, the like of which the earth has never borne 
before ; and thou . ridest on the winds as I once rode 
on Borak, who shall dwell in Paradise until the birth 
of Mohamed. Show thyself grateful therefore unto 
the only God, and taking advantage of the ease with 
which thou canst travel from place to place, visit the 
cities of Jathrib *, where the greatest of prophets shall 
one day find shelter and protection, and of Mecca, the 
place of his birth, where now the holy temple stands 
which I and my son Ismael (peace be on him !) re- 
built after the flood." 

The next morning, Solomon proclaimed that he 
would undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that 

* The ancient name of Medina, where Mohamed died. 



186 

each and every Israelite would be permitted to ac- 
company him. There immediately applied so many 
pilgrims, that Solomon was obliged to have a new 
carpet woven by the spirits, two leagues in length 
and two in breadth. 

The empty space which remained he filled with 
camels, oxen and smaller cattle, which he designed to 
sacrifice at Mecca, and to divide among the poor. 

For himself he had a throne erected, which was so 
studded with brilliant jewels, that no one could raise 
his eyes to him. The men of distinguished piety 
occupied golden seats near the throne : the learned 
were seated on silver, and part of the common people 
on wood. The genii and demons were commanded 
to fly before him, for he trusted them so little, that 
he desired to have them constantly in his presence, 
and therefore always drank out of crystal cups so as 
never to lose sight of them, even when he was com- 
pelled to satisfy his thirst. But the birds he directed 
to fly above the carpet in close array, to protect the 
travellers from the sun. 

When the arrangements were complete, and men, 
spirits, birds and beasts were assembled, he com- 
manded the eight winds to raise up the carpet with 
all that it contained, and to carry it to Medina. In 
the vicinity of that city, he made a signal to the 
birds to lower their wings: whereupon the winds gra- 
dually abated, until the carpet rested on the earth. 

But no one was permitted to leave the carpet, for 



THE TKTTANT-BIKD. 187 

Medina was then inhabited by worshippers of idols, 
with whom the king would not suffer his subjects to 
come in contact. 

Solomon went unattended to the spot where, in 
later times, Mohamed erected his first mosque, — it 
was then a burial-ground, — performed his mid-day 
devotions, and then returned to the carpet. The 
birds at his nod spread their wings* the winds bore 
up the carpet, and swept on with it to Mecca. This 
city was then governed by the Djorhamides, who had 
migrated there from the Southern Arabia, and were 
at that time worshippers of the only God, keeping 
the Kaaba as pure from idolatry as it was in the 
days of Abraham and of Ismael. Solomon therefore 
entered it, with all his attendants, performed the 
ceremonies obligatory on pilgrims, and when he had 
slain the victims which he brought with him from 
Jerusalem, he pronounced in the Kaaba a long dis- 
course, in which he predicted the future birth of 
Mohamed, and exhorted all his hearers to enforce 
faith in him upon their children and descendants. 

After a stay of three days, king Solomon resolved 
to return again to Jerusalem. But when the birds 
had unfolded their wings, and the carpet was already 
in motion, he suddenly discovered a ray of light 
striking upon it, whence he concluded that one of 
his birds had left its post. 

He therefore summoned the eagle, and directed him 
to call over the names of all the birds, and to report 



188 THE HOOPO. 

which was absent. The eagle obeyed, and soon came 
back with the answer that the hoopo was wanting. 

The king grew enraged ; the more so because he 
needed the hoopo during the journey, since no other 
bird possessed its powers to descry the hidden fount- 
ains of the desert. 

" Soar aloft," he cried harshly" to the eagle; " search 
for the hoopo, and bring it hither, that I may pluck 
off its feathers, and expose it naked to the scorching 
sun, until the worms shall have consumed it." 

The eagle soared heavenwards, until the earth be- 
neath him appeared like an inverted bowl. He then 
halted, and looked into every direction to discover 
the truant subject. As soon as he spied it coming 
from the south, he plunged down, and would have 
seized it in his talons, but the hoopo adjured him by 
Solomon to forbear. 

" Darest thou to invoke the king's protection ? " 
replied the eagle. " Well may thy mother weep for 
thee. The king is enraged, for he has discovered 
thy absence, and sworn to punish it terribly." 

" Lead me to him," rejoined the other. " I know 
that he will excuse my absence when he hears where 
I have been, and what I have to report of my ex- 
cursion." 

The eagle led him to the king, who was sitting on 
his judgment- throne with wrathful countenance, and 
instantly drew the delinquent violently towards him. 
The hoopo trembled in every limb, and hung down 
his plumage, in token of submission. But when So- 



THE, REPORT. 189 

lonion would have grasped him still more tightly, he 
cried, " Remember, O prophet of Allah ! that thou, 
too, shalt one day give an account unto the Lord : 
let me therefore not be condemned unheard." 

" How canst thou excuse thy absenting thyself 
without my permission ? " 

" I bring information respecting a country and a 
queen whose names thou hast not even heard of : — 
the country of Saba, and queen Balkis." 

(i These names are indeed quite strange to me. 
Who has informed thee of them ? " 

ee A hoopo from those regions, whom I met during 
one of my short excursions. In the course of our 
conversation I spoke to him of thee, and thy exten- 
sive dominions, and he was astonished that thy fame 
should not yet have reached his home. He entreated 
me therefore to accompany him there, and convince 
myself that it would be worth thy while to subject 
the land of Saba unto thy sceptre. 

" On our way he related to me the whole history of 
that country down to its present queen, who rules 
over so large an army, that she requires twelve 
thousand captains to command it." 

Solomon relinquished his hold of the hoopo, and 
commanded him to recount all that he had heard of 
that country, and its history ; whereupon the bird 
began as follows : — " Most mighty king and prophet \ 
be it known to thee that Saba is the capital of an 
extensive country in the south of Arabia, and was 
founded by king Saba, Ibn Jashab, Ibn Sarab, Ibn 



190 SABA. 

Kachtan. His name was properly Abd Shems (the 
servant of the Sun) ; but he had received the sur- 
name of Saba (one who takes captive), by reason of 
his numerous conquests." 

Saba was the largest and most superb city ever 
constructed by the hand of man, and at the same time 
so strongly fortified, that it might have defied the 
united armies of the world. 

But that which especially distinguished this city 
of marble palaces were the magnificent gardens in the 
centre of which it stood. 

For King Saba had, in compliance with the 
counsels of the wise Lockman, constructed vast dykes 
and numerous canals, both to guard the people from 
inundation during the rainy season, and also against 
want of water in time of drought. 

Thus it came to pass, that this country, which is 
so vast that a good horseman would require a month 
to traverse it, became rapidly the richest and most 
fertile of the whole earth. It was covered with the 
finest trees in every direction, so that its travellers 
knew nothing of the scorching sun. Its air too was 
so pure and refreshing, and its sky so transparent, 
that the inhabitants lived to a very great age, in the 
enjoyment of perfect health. 

The land of Saba was, as it were, a diadem on the 
brow of the universe. 

This state of felicity endured as long as it pleased 
Allah. King Saba, its founder, died, and was sue- 



SABA. 191 

ceeded by other kings, who enjoyed the fruits of 
Lockman's labours, without thinking of preserving 
them : — *but time was busy with their destruction. 
The torrents plunging from the adjacent mountains 
gradually undermined the dyke which had been con- 
structed to restrain and to distribute them into the 
various canals, so that it fell in at last, and the whole 
country was, in consequence, laid waste by a fearful 
flood. The first precursors of an approaching disaster 
showed themselves in the reign of king Amru. In 
his time it was that the priestess Dharifa beheld in a 
dream a vast dark cloud, which, bursting amid terrific 
thunderings, poured destruction upon the land. She 
told her dream to the king, and made no secret of her 
fears respecting the welfare of his empire ; but the 
king and his courtiers endeavoured to silence her, and 
continued, as before, their heedless, careless courses. 

One day, however, while Amru was in a grove in 
dalliance with two maidens, the priestess stepped 
before him with dishevelled hair and ruffled counte- 
nance, and predicted anew the speedy desolation of 
the country. 

The king dismissed his companions; and having 
seated the priestess beside him, inquired of her what 
new omen foreboded this evil. " On my way hither," 
replied Dharifa, C( I have met crimson rats standing 
erect, and wiping their eyes with their feet ; and a 
turtle, which, lay on its back, struggling in vain to 
rise ; — these are certain signs of a flood, which shall 



192 SABA. 

reduce this country to the sad condition in which 
it was in ancient times." 

" What proof givest thou me of the truth of thy 
statement ? " inquired Amru. 

" Go to the dyke, and thine own eyes shall con- 
vince thee." 

The king went, but speedily came back to the grove 
with distracted countenance. " I have seen a dread- 
ful sight," he cried. " Three rats as large as porcu- 
pines were gnawing the dykes with their teeth, and 
tearing off pieces of rock which fifty men would not 
have been able to move." 

Dharifa then gave him still other signs ; and he 
himself had a dream, in which he saw the tops of the 
loftiest trees covered with sand — an evident presage 
of the approaching flood ; — so that he resolved to 
fly from his country. 

Yet, in order to dispose of his castles and posses- 
sions to advantage, he concealed what he had seen and 
heard, and invented the following pretext for his 
emigration. 

One day he gave a grand banquet to his highest 
officers of state and the chiefs of his army ; but arrang- 
ed with his son beforehand that he should strike him 
in the face during a discussion. When this accord- 
ingly took place at the public table, the king sprang 
up, drew his sword, and feigned to slay his son ; but, 
as he had foreseen, his guests rushed in between 
them, and hurried away the prince. Amru then 



SABA. 193 

swore that he would no longer remain in a country 
where he had suffered such a disgrace. But when all 
his estates were sold, he avowed the true motive of his 
emigration; and many tribes joined themselves to him. 
Soon after his departure, the predicted calamities 
took place, for the inhabitants of Saba, or Mareb, as 
this city is sometimes called, listened neither to the 
warnings of Dharifa nor the admonition of a prophet 
whom Allah had sent them. The strong dyke fell 
in, and the waters pouring from the mountain, de- 
vastated the city and the entire vicinity. " As, how- 
ever, the men of Saba" continued the Hoopo in his 
narrative before king Solomon, " who had fled into 
the mountain were improved by their misfortune, 
and repented, they soon succeeded, with the help of 
Allah, in constructing new dams, and in restoring 
their country to a high degree of power and pros- 
perity, which went on increasing under the succeeding 
kings, though the old vices too re-appeared, and, in- 
stead of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, they even 
worshipped the sun." The last king of Saba, named 
Sharahbil, was a monster of tyranny. He had a 
vizier descended from the ancient royal house of the 
Himiarites, who was so handsome, that he found fa- 
vour in the eyes of the daughters of the genii, and they 
often placed themselves in his way in the shape of ga- 
zelles, merely to gaze upon him. One of them, whose 
name was Umeira, felt so ardent an attachment for 
the vizier, that she completely forgot the distinction 

K 



194 SABA. 

between men and genii, and one day, while he was 
following the chase, appeared in the form of a beautiful 
virgin, and offered him her hand, on condition that he 
would follow her, and never demand an account of 
any of her actions. The vizier thought the daughter 
of the genii so far exalted above all human beauty, 
that he lost his self-command, and consented, without 
reflection, to all that she proposed. Umeira then 
journeyed with him to the island where she lived, 
and married him. Within a year's time she bore a 
daughter, whom she called Balkis; but soon after that 
she left her husband, because he (as Moses had done 
with Alkidhr) had repeatedly inquired into her mo- 
tives when unable to comprehend her actions. The 
vizier then returned with Balkis to his native country, 
and concealed himself in one of its valleys at a dis- 
tance from the capital : there Balkis grew up like the 
fairest flower of Yemen, but she was obliged to live 
in greater retirement the older she became, for her 
father feared lest Sharahbil might hear of her, and 
treat her as remorselessly as the other maidens of Saba. 
Nevertheless, Heaven had decreed that all his pre- 
cautions should be abortive ; for the king, in order 
to learn the condition of his empire, and the secret 
sentiments of his subjects, once made a journey on 
foot, disguised like a beggar, throughout the land. 
When he came to the region where the vizier lived, 
he heard both him and his daughter much spoken of, 
because no one knew who he was, nor whence he had 



SABA. 195 

come, nor why he lived in such obscurity. The king 
therefore caused his residence to be pointed out, and 
he reached it at the moment when the vizier and his 
daughter were seated at table. His first glance fell 
on Balkis, who was then in her fourteenth year, and 
beautiful like a houri of Paradise, for, with the grace 
and loveliness of woman, she combined the trans- 
parent complexion and the majesty of the genii. But 
how great was his astonishment, when, fixing his eye 
on her father, he recognised his former vizier, who 
had so suddenly disappeared, and whose fate had 
remained unknown ! 

As soon as the vizier observed that the king had 
recognised him, he fell down at his feet, imploring his 
favour, and relating all that had befallen him during 
his absence. Sharahbil pardoned him from love to 
Balkis, but demanded that he should resume his 
former functions, and at the same time presented him 
with a palace in the finest situation near his capital. 
But a few weeks had scarcely elapsed when the 
vizier one morning returned from the city with a 
heavily clouded brow, and said to Balkis, " My fears 
are now realized ! The king has asked thy hand, and 
I could not refuse without endangering my life, al- 
though I would rather see thee laid in thy grave 
than in the arms of this tyrant." 

" Dismiss your fears, my father," replied Balkis ; 
" I shall free me and my whole sex from this aban- 
doned man. Only put on a cheerful brow, that he 

K 2 



196 SABA. 

may not conceive any suspicion, and request of him, 
as the only favour I demand, that our nuptials be 
solemnised here in privacy." 

The king cheerfully agreed to the wish of his 
bride, and repaired on the following morning, accom- 
panied by a few servants, to the vizier's palace, where 
he was entertained with royal magnificence. After 
the repast, the vizier retired with his guests, and 
Balkis remained alone with the king. But on a given 
signal her female slaves appeared : one of them sang, 
another played on the harp, a third danced before 
them, and a fourth presented wine in golden cups. 
The last was, by Balkis's directions, especially active, 
so that the king, whom she urged by every art to 
partake of the strongest wines, soon fell back lifeless 
on his divan. Balkis now drew forth a dagger from 
beneath her robe, and plunged it so deeply into the 
heart of Sharahbil, that his soul rushed instantly 
to hell. She then called her father, and pointing to 
the corpse before her, said, " To-morrow morning let 
the most influential men of the city, and also some 
chiefs of the army, be commanded, in the king's 
name, to send him their daughters. This will produce 
a revolt, which we shall improve to our advantage." 

Balkis was not mistaken in her conjecture ; for the 
men, whose daughters were threatened with infamy, 
called their kinsmen together, and marched in the 
evening to the palace of the vizier, threatening to set 
it on fire unless the king should be delivered up to 
them. 



THE MISSIVE. 197 

Balkis then cut off the king's head, and flung it 
through the window to the assembled insurgents. In- 
stantly there arose the loud exultations of the multi- 
tude, the city was festively illumined, and Balkis, as 
protectress of her sex, was proclaimed queen of Saba. 
" This queen," concluded the Hoopo, " has been reign- 
ing there since many years in great wisdom and pru- 
dence, and justice prevails throughout her now 
flourishing empire. She assists at all the councils 
of her viziers, concealed from the gaze of men by a fine 
curtain, and seated on a lofty throne of most skilful 
workmanship, and adorned with jewels. But, like 
many of the kings of that country before her, she is 
a worshipper of the sun." 

" We shall see," said Solomon, when the Hoopo 
had concluded the account of his journey, " whether 
thou hast spoken the truth, or art to be numbered 
amongst deceivers." 

He then caused a fountain to be pointed out by the 
Hoopo, performed his ablutions, and, when he had 
prayed, wrote the following lines : — " From Solo- 
mon, the son of David and servant of Allah, to 
Balkis, queen of Saba. In the name of Allah the 
All-merciful and Gracious, blessed are they who 
follow the guidance of fate ! follow thou my invita- 
tion, and present thyself before me as a believer." 
This note he sealed with musk, stamped his signet 
on it, and gave it to the Hoopo, with the words, " Take 
this letter to Queen Balkis ; then retire, but not so 
k 3 



198 QUEEN BALKIS. 

far as to preclude thee from hearing what she shall 
advise with her viziers respecting it." 

The Hoopo, with the letter in his bill, darted away- 
like an arrow, and arrived next day at Mared. The 
queen was surrounded by all her councillors, when he 
stepped into her hall of state, and dropped the letter 
into her lap. She started as soon as she beheld Solo- 
mon's mighty signet, opened the letter hurriedly, and, 
having first read it to herself, communicated it to her 
counsellors, among whom were also her highest chief- 
tains, and entreated their counsel on this important 
matter. 

But they replied with one voice, " You may rely 
on our power and courage, and act according to your 
good pleasure and wisdom." 

"Before, then, I engage in war," said Balkis, 
" which always entails much suffering and misfortune 
upon a country, I will send some presents to king 
Solomon, and see how he will receive my ambas- 
sadors. If he suffers himself to be bribed, he is no 
more than other kings who have fallen before our 
power; but if he reject my presents, then is he a 
true prophet, whose faith we must embrace." 

She then dressed five hundred youths like maidens, 
and as many maidens like young men, and com- 
manded the former to behave in the presence of So- 
lomon like girls, and the latter like boys. She then 
had a thousand carpets prepared wrought with gold 
and silver, a crown composed of the finest pearls and 



RIDDLES. 199 

hyacinths, and many loads of musk, amber, aloes, 
and other precious products of South Arabia. To 
these she added a closed casket containing an un- 
perforated pearl, a diamond intricately pierced, and 
a goblet of crystal. 

" As a true prophet," she wrote to him, " thou 
wilt no doubt be able to distinguish the youths from 
the maidens, to divine the contents of the closed 
casket, to perforate the pearl, to thread the diamond, 
and to fill the goblet with water that has neither 
dropped from the clouds nor gushed forth from the 
earth." 

All these presents and her letter she sent to him by 
experienced and intelligent men, to whom she said at 
their departure, " If Solomon meet you with pride 
and harshness, be not cast down, for these are indica- 
tions of human weakness ; but if he receive you with 
kindness and condescension, be on your guard, for 
you then have to do with a prophet." 

The Hoopo heard all this, for he had kept close 
to the queen until the ambassadors had departed. 
He then flew in a direct line, without resting, to the 
tent of Solomon, to whom he reported what he had 
heard. The king then commanded the genii to pro- 
duce a carpet which should cover the space of nine 
parasangs, and to spread it out at the steps of his 
throne towards the south. To the eastward, where 
the carpet ceased, he caused a lofty golden wall to 
k 4 



200 MAGNIFICENCE. 

be erected, and to the westward, one of silver. On 
both sides of the carpet he ranged the rarest foreign 
animals, and all kinds of genii and demons. 

The ambassadors were greatly confused on ar- 
riving in Solomon's encampment, where a splendour 
and magnificence was displayed such as they had 
never conceived of before. The first thing they did 
on beholding the immense carpet, which their eyes 
were unable to survey, was to fling away their thou- 
sand carpets, which they had brought as a present for 
the king. The nearer they came the greater waxed 
their perplexity, on account of the many singular 
birds, and beasts, and spirits through whose ranks 
they had to pass in approaching Solomon ; but their 
hearts were relieved as soon as they stood before 
him, for he greeted them with kindness, and inquired 
with smiling lips what had brought them to him ? 

" We are the bearers of a letter from queen 
Balkis," replied the most eloquent of the embassy, 
while he presented the letter. 

" I know its contents," replied Solomon, " without 
opening it, as well as those of the casket which you 
have brought with you ; and I shall, by the help of 
Allah, perforate your pearl, and cause your diamond 
to be threaded. But I will first of all fill your goblet 
with water, which has not fallen from the clouds, nor 
gushed from the earth, and distinguish the beardless 
youths from the virgins who accompany you." He 
then caused one thousand silver bowls and basins to be 



RIDDLES SOLVED. 201 

brought, and commanded the male and female slaves 
to wash themselves. The former immediately put 
their hands, on which the water was poured, to their 
faces ; but the latter first emptied it into their right 
hands as it flowed from the bowl into their left, and 
then washed their faces with both their hands. Here- 
upon Solomon readily discovered the sexes of the 
slaves, to the great astonishment of the ambassadors. 
This being done, he commanded a tall and corpulent 
slave to mount on a young and fiery horse, and to 
ride through the camp at the top of his speed, and to 
return instantly to him. When the slave returned 
with the steed to Solomon, there poured from him 
whole torrents of perspiration, so that the crysta 
goblet was immediately filled. 

"Here," said Solomon to the ambassadors, "is 
water which has neither come out of the earth nor 
from heaven." The pearl he perforated with the 
stone, for the knowledge of which he was indebted to 
Sachr and the raven ; but the threading of the dia- 
mond, in whose opening there was every possible curve, 
puzzled him, until a demon brought him a worm, 
which crept through the jewel, leaving a silken thread 
behind. Solomon inquired of the worm how he might 
reward him for this great service, by which he had 
saved his dignity as a prophet. The worm requested 
that a fine fruit tree should be appointed to him as 
his dwelling. Solomon gave him the mulberry-tree, 
k 5 



202 PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH. 

which from that time affords a shelter and nourish- 
ment to the silkworm for ever. 

" You have seen now," said Solomon to the am- 
bassadors, " that I have successfully passed all the 
trials which your queen has imposed on me. Re- 
turn to her, together with the presents destined 
for me, of which I do not stand in need, and 
tell her that if she do not accept my faith, and do 
homage unto me, I shall invade her country with an 
army, which no human power shall be able to resist, 
and drag her a wretched captive to my capital." 

The ambassadors left Solomon under the fullest 
conviction of his might, and mission as a prophet ; 
and their report respecting all that had passed be- 
tween them and the king made the same impression 
on Queen Balkis. 

tf Solomon is a mighty prophet," said she to the 
viziers who surrounded her, and had listened to the 
narrative of the ambassadors : " the best plan I can 
adopt is to journey to him with the leaders of 
my army, in order to ascertain what he demands of 
us." She then commanded the necessary preparations 
for the journey to be made ; and before her departure 
she locked up her throne, which she left with the 
greatest reluctance, in a hall which it was impossible 
to reach without first stepping through six other closed 
halls : and all the seven halls were in the innermost 
of the seven closed apartments of which the palace, 
guarded by her most faithful servants, consisted. 



INCANTATION. 203 

When Queen Balkis, attended by her twelve thou- 
sand captains, each of whom commanded several 
thousand men, had come within a parasang of Solo- 
mon's encampment, he said to his hosts, "Which of 
you will bring me the throne of Queen Balkis before 
she come to me as a believer, that I may rightfully 
appropriate this curious piece of art while yet in the 
possession of an infidel?" 

Hereupon a misshapen demon (who was as large 
as a mountain) said, " I will bring it to thee before 
noon, ere thou dismiss thy council. I am not wanting 
in power for the achievement, and thou mayest en- 
trust me with the throne without any apprehension." 

But Solomon had not so much time left, for he 
already perceived at a distance the clouds of dust 
raised by the army of Saba. 

" Then," said his vizier, Assaf, the son of Burahja, 
who, by reason of his acquaintance with the holy 
names of Allah, found nothing too difficult, "raise 
thy eyes towards heaven, and before thou shalt 
be able to cast them down again to the earth, the 
throne of the queen of Saba shall stand here before 
thee." 

Solomon gazed heavenward, and Assaf called Allah 
by his holiest name, praying that he might send him 
the throne of Balkis. Then, in the twinkling of an 
eye, the throne rolled through the bowels of the 
earth until it came to the throne of Solomon, and 
rose up through the opening ground, whereupon 
k 6 



204 PKUDENCE. 

Solomon exclaimed, " How great is the goodness of 
Allah ! this was assuredly intended as a trial whether 
I should be grateful to him or not ; but whosoever 
acknowledged the goodness of Allah, does it to him- 
self, and whoever denieth it, does no less so. Allah 
has no need of human gratitude ! " 

After having admired the throne, he said to one of 
his servants, "Make some change on it, and let us 
see whether Balkis will recognise it again." The 
servants took several parts of the throne to pieces, 
and replaced them differently. But when Balkis was 
asked whether her throne was like it? she replied, 
" It seems as if it were the same." 

This and other replies of the queen convinced Solo- 
mon of her superior understanding, for she had un- 
doubtedly recognised her throne; but her answer 
was so equivocal, that it did not sound either re- 
proachful or suspicious. But before he would enter 
into more intimate relations with her, he desired to 
clear up a certain point respecting her, and to see 
whether she actually had cloven feet, as several of his 
demons would have him to believe ; or whether they 
had only invented the defect from fear lest he might 
marry her, and beget children, who, as descendants 
of the genii, would be even more mighty than him- 
self. He therefore caused her to be conducted through 
a hall, whose floor was of crystal, and under which 
water, tenanted by every variety of fish, was flowing. 
Balkis, who had never seen a crystal floor, supposed 



THE CONVEET — THE APES. 205 

that there was water to be passed through, and there- 
fore raised her robe slightly, when the king discovered, 
to his great joy, a beautifully-shaped female foot. 
When his eye was satisfied, he called to her : " Come 
hither, there is no water here, but only a crystal 
floor, and confess thyself to the faith in one only 
God." Balkis approached the throne, which stood at 
the end of the hall, and in Solomon's presence ab- 
jured the worship of the sun. 

Solomon then married Balkis, but reinstated her as 
queen of Saba, and spent three days in every month 
with her. 

On one of his progresses from Jerusalem to 
Mareb, he passed through a valley inhabited by apes, 
which, however, dressed and lived like men, and had 
more comfortable dwellings than other apes, and even 
bore all kinds of weapons. He descended from his 
flying carpet, and marched into the valley with a few 
of his troops. The apes hurried together to drive 
him back, but one of their elders stepped forward 
and said : " Let us rather seek safety in submission, 
for our foe is a holy prophet. Three apes were 
immediately chosen as ambassadors to negotiate with 
Solomon. He received them kindly, and inquired 
to which class of apes they belonged, and how it 
came to pass that they were so skilled in all human 
arts? The ambassadors replied: "Be not astonished 
at us, for we are descended from men, and are the 
remnant of a Jewish community, which, notwith- 



206 NUBARA. 

standing all admonition, continued to desecrate the 
Sabbath, until Allah cursed them, and turned them 
into apes.* Solomon was moved to compassion ; and, 
to protect them from all further animosity on the part 
of man, gave them a parchment, in which he secured 
to them for ever the undisturbed possession of this 
valley. 

[At the time of the calif Omar, there came a di- 
vision of troops into this valley ; but when they 
would have raised their tents to occupy it, there 
came an aged ape, with a scroll of parchment in his 
hands, and presented it to the leader of the soldiers. 
Yet, as no one was able to read it, they sent it to Omar 
at Medina, to whom it was explained by a Jew, who 
had been converted to Islam. He sent it back forth- 
with, and commanded the troops to evacuate the 
valley.] 

Meanwhile Balkis soon found a dangerous rival in 
Djarada, the daughter of king Nubara, who governed 
one of the finest islands in the Indian ocean. This 
king was a fearful tyrant, and forced all his subjects 
to worship him as a God. 

As soon as Solomon heard of it, he marched 
against him with as many troops as his largest carpet 
could contain, conquered the island, and slew the 
king with his own hand. When he was on the point 
of leaving the palace of Nubara, there stept before 

* Mohamed mentions this in the Koran as a fact. 



IDOLATRY. 207 

him a virgin who far surpassed in beauty and grace 
the whole harem of Solomon, not even the queen of 
Saba excepted. He commanded her to be led to his 
carpet, and, threatening her with death, forced her 
to accept his faith and his hand. 

But Djarada saw in Solomon only the murderer of 
her father, and replied to his caresses with sighs 
and tears. 

Solomon hoped that time would heal her wounds, 
and reconcile her to her fate. But when at the ex- 
piration of a whole year her heart still remained 
closed against love and joy, he overwhelmed her 
with reproaches, and inquired how he might assuage 
her grief. 

" As it is not in thy power," replied Djarada, "to 
recall my father to life, send a few genii to my home ; 
let them bring his statue, and place it in my 
chamber. Perhaps the very sight of his image will 
procure me some consolation." 

Solomon was weak enough to comply with her 
request, and to defile his palace with the image of a 
man who had deified himself, and to whom even 
Djarada secretly payed divine honours. This idol 
worship had lasted forty days when Assaf was in- 
formed of it. He therefore mounted the rostrum, 
and, before the whole assembled people, pronounced 
a discourse, in which he described the pure and God- 
devoted life of all the prophets, from Adam until 
David. In passing to Solomon, he praised the 
wisdom and piety of the first years of his reign, but 



208 ASSAF. . 

regretted that his later courses showed less of the 
true fear of God. 

As soon as Solomon had learned the contents of 
this discourse, he summoned Assaf, and inquired of 
him whereby he had deserved to be thus censured 
before the whole people ? 

Assaf replied, " Thou hast permitted thy passion 
to blind thee, and suffered idolatry in thy palace." 

Solomon hastened to the apartments of Djarada, 
whom he found prostrate in prayer before the image 
of her father, and exclaimed, 

" We belong unto Allah, and shall one day return 
to Him ! " he shivered the idol to pieces, and punished 
the princess. He then put on new robes, which none 
but pure virgins had touched, strewed ashes on his 
head, went into the desert, and implored Allah for 
forgiveness. 

Allah pardoned his sin ; but he was to atone for it 
during forty days. On returning home in the even- 
ing, having given his signet into the keeping of one 
of his wives until he should return from an unclean 
place, Sachr assumed his form, and obtained from her 
the ring. Soon after, Solomon himself claimed it; 
but he was laughed at and derided, for the light of 
prophecy had departed from him, so that no one re- 
cognised him as king, and he was driven from his 
palace as a deceiver and impostor. He now wandered 
up and down the country ; and wherever he gave his 
name he was mocked as a madman, and shamefully 
entreated. In this manner he lived nine-and-thirty 



SACHR. 209 

days, sometimes begging, sometimes living on herbs. 
On the fortieth day he entered into the service of a 
fisherman, who promised him as his daily wages two 
fishes, one of which he hoped to exchange for bread. 

But on that day the power of Sachr came to an 
end. 

For this wicked spirit had, notwithstanding his 
external resemblance to Solomon, and his possession 
of the signet ring, by which he had obtained power 
over spirits, men, and animals, excited suspicion, by 
his ungodly deportment, and his senseless and un- 
lawful ordinances. 

The elders of Israel came daily to Assaf, preferring 
new charges against the king ; but Assaf constantly 
found the doors of the palace closed against him. 

But when, finally, on the fortieth day, even the 
wives of Solomon came and complained that the king 
no longer observed any of the prescribed rules of 
purification, Assaf, accompanied by some doctors of 
the law, who were reading aloud in the Thora, forced 
his way, spite of the gate-keepers and sentinels, 
who would have hindered him, into the hall of state, 
where Sachr sojourned. No sooner did he hear the 
word of God, which had been revealed to Moses *. 



* There is an allusion here to the peculiar ideas which both 
Mohamedans and Jews attach to the recitation of scriptural or 
imagined sacred words and sentences. 

They believe their bare reading or repetition valuable : — ■ 



210 PROVIDENCE. 

than he shrunk back into his native form, and flew 
in haste to the shore of the sea, where the signet ring 
dropt from him. 

By the providence of the Lord of the universe, 
the ring was caught up and swallowed by a fish, which 
was soon afterwards driven into the net of the fisher- 
man whom Solomon served. Solomon received this 
fish as the wages of his labour, and when he ate it 
in the evening he found his ring. 

He then commanded the winds to take him back 
to Jerusalem, where heassembled around him all the 
chiefs of men, birds, beasts, and spirits, and related 
to them all that had befallen him during the last 
forty days, and how Allah had, in a miraculous man- 
ner, restored the ring which Sachr had wily usurped. 

He then caused Sachr to be pursued, and forced 
him into a copper flask, which he sealed with his 
signet, and flung between two rocks into the sea of 
Tiberias, where he must remain until the day of the 
resurrection. 

The government of Solomon, which after this 
occurrence lasted yet ten years, was not clouded 
again by misfortune. Djarada, the cause of his 
calamity, he never desired to see again, although she 

1. As being meritorious before God, independent of any re- 
action which it may produce on their heart and understanding. 

2. Because every letter is supposed to possess a (cabalistic) 
charm acting with resistless power upon spirits, and even upon 
the Lord himself. — E.T. 



TADMOR. 211 

was now truly converted. But Queen Balkis he 
visited regularly every month until the day of her 
death. 

When she died, he caused her remains to be taken 
to the city of Tadmor, which she had founded, and 
buried her there. But her grave remained unknown 
until the reign of Calif Walid, when, in consequence 
of long-continued rains, the walls of Tadmor fell in, 
and a stone coffin was discovered sixty cubits long 
and forty wide, and bearing this inscription : — 

" Here is the grave of the pious Balkis, the queen 
of Saba and consort of the prophet Solomon, the son 
of David. She was converted to the true faith in 
the thirteenth year of Solomon's accession to the 
throne, married him in the 14th, and died on Mon- 
day, the second day of Rabi-Awwal, in the three- 
and-twentieth year of his reign." 

The son of the calif caused the lid of the coffin to 
be raised up, and discovered a female form, which was 
as fresh and well preserved as if it had but just been 
buried. He immediately made a report of it to his 
father, inquiring what should be done with the 
coffin. 

Walid commanded that it should be left in the 
place where it was found, and be so built up with 
marble stones that it should never be desecrated 
again by human hands. 

This command was obeyed ; and notwithstanding 
the many devastations and changes which the city of 



212 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 

Tadmor and her walls have suffered, no traces have 
been found of the tomb of Queen Balkis. 

A few months after the death of the queen of Saba, 
the Angel of Death appeared unto Solomon with six 
faces: one to the right, and one to the left; one 
in front, and one behind ; one above his head, and 
one below it. The king, who had never seen him in 
this form, was startled, and inquired what this six- 
fold visage signified ? 

" With the face to the right," replied the Angel of 
Death, " I fetch the souls from the east ; with that to 
the left the souls from the west ; with that above, 
the souls of the inhabitants of heaven; with that 
below, the demons from the depths of the earth; 
with that behind, the souls of the people of Mad- 
judj and Jadjudj (Gog and Magog); but with that 
in front, those of the Faithful, to whom also thy 
soul belongs." 

" Must, then, even the angels die ? " 

" All that lives becomes the prey of death, as soon 
as Israfil shall have blown the trumpet the second 
time. Then I shall put to death even Gabriel and 
Michael, and immediately after that must myself die, 
at the command of Allah. Then God alone remains, 
and exclaims, e Whose is the world?' but there 
shall not a living creature be left to answer him ! 
And forty years must elapse, when Israfil shall be 
re-called to life, that he may blow his trumpet a third 
time, to wake all the dead." 



THE LAST JUDGMENT. 213 

"And who among men shall rise first from the 
grave ? " 

"Mohamed, the prophet, who shall in later times 
spring from the descendants of Ismail. 

" Israfil himself and Gabriel, together with other an- 
gels, shall come to his grave at Medina, and cry, ' Thou 
purest and noblest of souls ! return again to thy im- 
maculate body, and revive it again.' Then shall he 
rise from his grave, and shake the dust from his head. 
Gabriel greets him, and points to the winged Borak, 
who stands prepared for him, and to a standard and a 
crown which Allah sends him from Paradise. The 
angel then says to him, f Come to thy Lord, and 
mine, thou elect among all creatures ! The gardens 
of Eden are festively adorned for thee ; the houris 
await thee with impatience.' He then lifts him upon 
Borak, places the heavenly standard in his hand, and 
the crown upon his head, and leads him into Para- 
dise. Thereupon the rest of mankind shall be 
called to life. They shall all be brought to Pa- 
lestine, where the great tribunal shall be held, 
and where no other intercession than that of Maho- 
med is accepted. That will be a fearful day, when 
every one shall think only of himself. Adam will 
cry, ' O Lord, save my soul only ! I care not for Eve, 
nor for Abel.' Noah will exclaim, 6 O Lord, pre- 
serve me from hell, and do with Ham and Shem as 
thou pleasest ! ' Abraham shall say, ' I pray neither 
for Ismael nor Isaac, but for my own safety only.' 



214 SEVEN BRIDGES. 

Even Moses shall forget his brother Aaron, and 
Christ his mother, so greatly shall they be concerned 
for themselves. None but Mohamed shall implore 
the mercy of God for all the faithful of his people. 
They that are risen will then be conducted over the 
bridge Sirat, which is composed of seven bridges, 
each of which is three thousand years long. This 
bridge is as sharp as a sword, and as fine as a hair. 
One third of it is an ascent, one third is even, and 
one third is a descent. He alone who passes all 
these bridges with success can be admitted into Pa- 
radise. The unbelievers fall into hell from the first 
bridge ; the prayerless, from the second ; the uncha- 
ritable, from the third ; whoever has eaten in Kamad- 
han, from the fourth ; whoever has neglected the pil- 
grimage, from the fifth; whoever hath not commended 
the good, from the sixth ; and whoso hath not pre- 
vented evil, from the seventh." 

" When shall the resurrection be ? " 

" That is known only to Allah; but assuredly not 
before the advent of Mohamed, the last of all pro- 
phets. Previously to it the prophet Isa (Christ), 
sprung from thy own family, shall preach the true 
faith, shall be lifted up by Allah, and be born again. 
The nations of Jadjudj and Madjudj shall burst the 
wall behind which Alexander has confined them. 
The sun shall rise in the west, and many other signs 
and wonders shall precede." 

t( Suffer me to live until the completion of my 



DEATH OF SOLOMON. 215 

temple, for at my death the genii and demons will 
cease their labour." 

" Thy hour-glass has run out, and it is not in my 
power to prolong thy life another second." 
" Then follow me to my crystal hall ! " 
The Angel of Death accompanied Solomon unto 
the hall, whose walls were entirely of crystal. There 
Solomon prayed; and leaning upon his staff, re- 
quested the angel to take his soul in that position. 
The angel consented ; and his death was thus con- 
cealed from the demons a whole year, till the temple 
was finished. It was not until the staff, when de- 
stroyed by worms, broke down with him, that his death 
was observed by the spirits, who, in order to revenge 
themselves, concealed all kinds of magical books 
under his throne, so that many believers thought 
Solomon had been a sorcerer. But he was a pure 
and divine prophet, as it is written in the Koran, 
" Solomon was no infidel, but the demons were un- 
believers, and taught all manner of sorceries." When 
the king was lying on the ground, the angels carried 
him, together with his signet-ring, to a cave, where 
they shall guard him until the day of the resurrection. 



216 



JOHN, MARY, AND CHEIST. 

There once lived in Palestine a man named Am- 
ram Ibn Mathan, who had attained to a great 
age, without being blessed with posterity. Shortly 
before his death his wife Hanna prayed to the Lord 
that He might not suffer her to die childless. Her 
prayer was heard, and when she was with child she 
dedicated her offspring to the service of the Lord. 
But, contrary to her expectations, she gave birth to 
a daughter, whom she named Mariam (Mary), and was 
naturally in doubt if her child would be accepted as a 
servant in the temple, until an angel cried to her, 
" Allah has accepted thy vow, although he knew be- 
forehand that thou shouldst not give birth to a son. 
He has moreover sanctified thy daughter, as well as 
the man-child that shall be born of her, and will pre- 
serve him from the touch of Satan, who renders every 
other child susceptible of sin from its birth (on which 
account, also, all children cry aloud when they are 
born)." 

These words comforted Hanna, whose husband had 
died during her pregnancy. As soon as she had reco- 
vered from her childbed, she carried her infant daughter 
to Jerusalem, and presented her to the priests, as a 



ZACHARIAH. 217 

child dedicated to Allah. Zachariah, a priest whose 
wife was related to Hanna, was desirous of taking 
the child home with him ; but the other priests, who 
were all eager for this privilege, (for on account of his 
piety, Amram had stood in high repute among them,) 
protested against it, and forced him to cast lots with 
them for the guardianship of Mary. They proceeded 
therefore, twenty -nine in number, to the Jordan, and 
Hung their arrows into the river, on the understand- 
ing that he whose arrow should rise again, and remain 
on the water, should bring her up. By the will of 
Allah, the lot decided in favour of Zachariah, who 
then built a small chamber for Mary in the Temple, 
to which no one had access but himself. But when 
lie brought her some food, she was already supplied, 
and though it was in winter, the choicest summer fruits 
were standing before her. To his inquiry whence she 
had obtained it all, she replied, "From Allah, who 
satisfieth every one according to his own pleasure, 
and giveth no account of his proceedings."* When 



* The general defection of the Church had, long before 
Mohamed's time, spread into Arabia, where Christianity had 
been early and extensively planted. 

Many heresies respecting the Trinity and the Saviour, the 
worship of saints and images, errors on the future state of the 
soul, &Gs, had so completely overrun the nominal church of that 
country, that it is difficult to say whether one particle of truth 
was left in it. More especially the worship of Mary as the 
Mother of God, whom the Marianites considered as a Divinity, 
and to whom Collyridians even offered a stated sacrifice, was in 



218 TWO FLOWERS. 

Zachariah saw this, he prayed to Allah to perform a 
miracle even in his case, and to bless him with a son, 
notwithstanding his advanced age. Then Gabriel 
called to him, " Allah will give thee a son, who shall 
be called Jahja (John), and bear testimony to the 
Word of God" (Christ). Zachariah went down to 
his house filled with joy, and related to his wife what 
the angel had announced to him ; but as she was 
already ninety-and-eight years of age, and her hus- 
band one hundred and twenty, she laughed at him, 
so that at length he himself began to doubt the ful- 
filment of the promise, and asked a sign from Allah. 

" As the punishment of thy unbelief," cried Ga- 
briel unto him, " thou shalt be speechless for three 
days, and let this serve thee as the sign thou hast 
required." 

On the following morning Zachariah, as usual, 
desired to lead in prayer, but was unable to utter a 
single sound until the fourth day, when his tongue 
was loosed, and he besought Allah to pardon him and 
his wife. 

Then there came a voice from heaven, which said, 
"Your sin is forgiven, and Allah will give you a 
son, who shall surpass in purity and holiness all 
the men of his time. Blessed be he in the clay 
of his birth, as well as in those of his death and 
resurrection." 

general practice round Mohamed; and it is as curious as it 
is sad to observe how this idolatry affected him. — E. T. 



MARY. 219 

Within a year's time, Zachariah became the father 
of a child which, even at its birth, had a holy and 
venerable appearance. He now divided his time 
between him and Mary : and John in the house 
of his father, and Mary in the temple — grew up 
like two fair flowers, to the joy of all believers, 
daily increasing in wisdom and piety. 

"When Mary had grown to womanhood, there ap- 
peared to her one day, while she was alone in her 
cell, Gabriel, in full human form. 

Mary hastily covered herself with her veil, and 
cried, " Most Merciful I assist me against this 
man." 

But Gabriel said, " Fear nothing from me : I am 
the messenger of thy Lord, who has exalted thee 
above all the women of earth, and am come to make 
known to thee his will. Thou shalt bear a son, and 
call him Isa, the Blessed one. He shall speak earlier 
than all other children, and be honoured both in this 
world and in the world to come ! " 

" How shall I bear a son," replied Mary, af- 
frighted, " since I have not known a man ? " 

" It is even so," replied Gabriel. " Did not Allah 
create Adam without either father or mother, merely 
by his word, c Be thou created.' Thy son shall be a 
sign of His omnipotence, and as His prophet, restore 
the backsliding sons of Israel to the path of righ- 
teousness." 

r. 2 



220 BIRTH OF CHRIST. 

When Gabriel had thus spoken, he raised with his 
finger Mary's robe from her bosom, and breathed upon 
her. 

Thereupon she ran into the field, and had scarcely 
time to support herself on the withered trunk of a 
date tree, before she was delivered of a son. Then 
cried she, " Oh that I had died, and been forgotten 
long ere this, rather than that the suspicion of having 
sinned should fall upon me ! " 

Gabriel appeared again to her, and said, (i Fear 
nothing, Mary. Behold, the Lord causes a fountain 
of fresh water to gush forth from the earth at thy 
feet, and the trunk on which thou leanest is blossom- 
ing even now, and fresh dates are covering its withered 
branches. Eat and drink, and when thou art satis- 
fied, return to thy people; and if any one shall inquire 
of thee respecting thy child, be thou silent, and leave 
thy defence to him." 

Mary plucked a few dates, which tasted like 
fruit from Paradise, drank from the fountain, whose 
water was even like milk, and then went, with 
her child in her arms, unto her family ; but all the 
people cried out to her, " Mary, what hast thou 
done ? Thy father was so pious, and thy mother so 
chaste." 

Mary, instead of replying, pointed to the child. 

Then said her relations, " Shall this new-born child 
answer us ? " 

But Jesus said, "Do not sin, in suspecting my 



MIRACLES. 221 

mother. Allah has created me by his word, and has 
chosen me to be his servant and prophet." 

But, notwithstanding all these wonders, the sons 
of Israel would not believe in Christ when at the 
age of manhood, he proclaimed to them the Gospel 
which Allah had revealed to him. He was derided 
and despised, because he called himself " the Word 
and the Spirit of Allah, 5 ' and was challenged to per- 
form new miracles in the sight of the whole people. 

Christ then created, at the will of Allah, various 
kinds of birds out of clay, which he animated with 
his breath, so that they ate and drank, and flew up 
and down, like natural birds.* He healed in one 
day by his prayer fifty thousand blind and leprous 
persons, whose cure the best physicians of those times 
had been unable to effect. He recovered many dead, 
who, after he had recalled them to life, married again, 
and had children, and even raised up Sam, the son of 
Noah, who, however, died again immediately. But 
he not only revived men, but even isolated parts and 
limbs. During his wanderings, he one day found a 
skull near the Dead Sea, and his disciples asked him 

* In the original, it is said, Christ was able to tell the people 
what food they had taken, and what provisions they had laid up 
in store. This whole legend shows how painfully deceived 
Mohamed was by those who spoke to him of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ; but if, even with his knowledge, he believed Him to 
have been a great prophet, would he not have believed in his 
Divinity if he had read the gospels ? 

i, 3 



222 THE SKULL. 

to recall it to life. Christ prayed to Allah, and then 3 
turning to the skull, said, " Live, by the will of 
the Lord, and tell us how thou hast found death, the 
grave, and the future state." 

The skull then assumed the form of a living head, 
and said, "Know thou, O prophet of Allah! that about 
four thousand years ago, after taking a bath, I fell 
into a fever, which, notwithstanding all the medi- 
cines which were given me, continued seven days. 
On the eighth day I was so entirely exhausted, 
that all my limbs trembled, and my tongue cleaved 
to the roof of my mouth. Then there came to me the 
Angel of Death in a terrible shape. His head touched 
the sky, while his feet stood in the lowest depths of 
the earth. He held a sword in his right hand, and a 
cup in his left, and there were ten other angels with 
him, whom I took to be his servants. I would have 
shrieked so loudly at their sight, that the inhabit- 
ants of heaven and of earth must have been petrified ; 
but the angels fell on me, and held my tongue, and 
some of them pressed my veins, so as to force out 
my soul. Then said I, " Exalted spirits, I will give 
all that I possess for my life." But one of them 
struck me in the face, and almost shattered my jaw- 
bone, saying ; e Enemy of Allah, He accepts no ran- 
som.' The Angel of Death then placed his sword 
upon my throat, and gave me the cup, which I was 
forced to empty to the dregs, and this was my death. 
My consciousness now lost, I was washed, wrapped in 



THE SKULL. 223 

a shroud, and interred ; but when my grave was 
covered with earth, my soul returned to my body, 
and I was sorely afraid in my solitude. But soon 
there came two angels, with a parchment in their 
hands, and told unto me all the good and all the 
bad that I had done while living in the body, and 
I was compelled to write it down with my own hand, 
and to attest it by my own signature: whereupon 
they suspended the scroll on my neck, and vanished. 
There then appeared two other dark blue angels, each 
with a column of fire in his hand, one single spark 
of which, if it had dropt on the earth, would have con- 
sumed it. They called to me, in a voice like thunder, 
e Who is thy Lord ? ' Overcome with fright, I lost my 
senses, and said shudderingly, ( You are my lords ; ' 
but they cried, ( Thou liest, enemy of Allah,' and 
struck me a blow with the column of fire, that sent 
me down to the seventh earth; but as soon as I 
returned again to my grave, they said, e Oh Earth ! 
punish the man who has been rebellious against his 
Lord. ' Instantly the earth crushed me, so that my 
bones were almost ground to powder ; and she said, 
< Enemy of God ! I hated thee while thou didst tread 
my surface, but, by the glory of Allah, I will avenge 
me now, while thou art lying in my bowels.' The 
angels then opened one of the gateways of hell, and 
cried, ' Take this sinner, who did not believe in 
Allah, boil and burn him.' Thereupon I was dragged 
into the centre of hell by a chain which was seventy 

l 4 



224 THE SKULL. 

cubits in length, and as often as the flames consumed 
my skin I received a fresh one, but only to suffer anew 
the torments of burning. At the same time, I was 
so hungry, that I prayed for food. But I only ob- 
tained the putrified fruit of the tree Sakum, which not 
merely increased my hunger, but even caused the 
most horrid pain, and violent thirst; and when I 
asked for something to drink, nothing but boiling 
water was given me. At last they urged one end 
of the chain with such violence into my mouth, 
that it came out through my back, and chained me 
hand and foot." 

When Christ heard this, he wept with compassion, 
but demanded of the skull to describe hell more 
minutely. 

"Know, then," continued the skull, "O prophet of 
Allah I that hell consists of seven floors, one below the 
other. — The uppermost is for hypocrites, the second 
for Jews, the third for Christians, the fourth for the 
Magi, the fifth for those who call the prophets liars, 
the sixth for idolaters, and the seventh for the sin- 
ners of the people of the prophet Mohamed, who 
shall appear in later times. The last-mentioned 
abode is least terrible, and sinners are saved from it 
through the intercession of Mohamed; but in the 
others the torture and agony are so great, that if 
thou, O prophet of Allah ! shouldst but see it, thou 
wouldest weep with compassion as a woman who has 
lost her only child. The outer part of hell is of 



THE SKULL. 225 

copper, and the inner part of lead. Its floor is pu- 
nishment, and the wrath of the Almighty its ceiling. 
The walls are of fire, not clear and luminous, but 
black fire, and diffusing a close disgusting stench, 
being fed with men and idols." 

Christ wept long, and then inquired of the skull to 
which family he belonged during lifetime. 

He replied, "I am a descendant of the prophet 
Elias ! " 

" And what desirest thou now ? " 

" That Allah would recall me to life, that I might 
serve him with my whole heart, so as one day to be 
worthy of Paradise ! " 

Christ prayed to Allah, " O Lord ! thou knowest 
this man and me better than we know ourselves, and 
art omnipotent." 

Then Allah said to him, " I had long ago resolved 
upon that which he desires ; since, indeed, he had 
many excellencies, and was especially benevolent 
to the poor, he may return to the world through 
thy intercession ; and if he serve me henceforward 
faithfully, all his sins shall be forgiven." 

Christ cried unto the skull, " Be again a perfect 
man, through the omnipotence of God;" and while the 
words were still on his lips, there rose up a man who 
looked more blooming than in his former life ; and 
cried, " I confess that there is but one God, and 
that Abraham was his friend ; Moses saw him face 
to face, Isa is his spirit and word, and Mohamed 



226 RESUSCITATION. 

shall be his last and greatest messenger. I confess, 
moreover, that the resurrection is as certain as death, 
and that hell and paradise do really exist." 

This man lived sixty-and-six years after his resusci- 
tation, and spent his days fasting, and his nights in 
prayer, nor did he alienate a single moment from 
the service of the Lord until he died. 

But the more wonders Christ performed before the 
eyes of the people, the greater was their unbelief : 
for all that they were not able to comprehend they 
believed to be sorcery and delusion, instead of per- 
ceiving therein a proof of his divine mission. Even 
the twelve Apostles whom he had chosen to propa- 
gate the new doctrine, were not stedfast in the faith, 
and asked of him one day, that he might cause a 
table, covered with viands, to descend from heaven ! 

" A table shall be given you," said a voice from 
heaven, " but whosoever shall thereafter continue in 
unbelief shall suffer severe punishment." 

Thereupon there descended two clouds, with a 
golden table, on which there stood a covered dish of 
silver. 

Many of the Israelites who were present ex- 
claimed, " Behold the sorcerer ! what new delusion 
has he wrought ? " But these scoffers were instantly 
changed into swine. And on seeing it, Christ 
prayed: "Oh Lord, let this table lead us to sal- 
vation and not to ruin ! " Then said he to the 



MIRACLES. 227 

Apostles, "Let him who is the greatest among you 
rise and uncover this dish." But Simon, the oldest 
apostle, said, " Lord, thou art the most worthy 
to behold this heavenly food first." Christ then 
washed his hands, removed the cover, and said: 
" In the name of Allah ! " and behold there became 
visible a large baked fish, with neither bones nor scales, 
and diffused a fragrance around like the fruits of 
Paradise. Bound the fish there lay Hye, small 
loaves, and on it salt, pepper, and other spices. 
" Spirit of Allah," said Simon, " are these viands 
from this world or from the other ? " But Christ 
replied, " Are not both worlds, and all that they con- 
tain, the work of the Lord ? Receive whatever he 
has given with grateful hearts, and ask not whence 
it comes ! But if the appearance of this fish be not 
sufficiently miraculous to you, you shall behold a still 
greater sign." Then, turning to the fish, he said, 
" Live ! by the will of the Lord." The fish then 
began to stir and to move, so that the Apostles 
fled with fear. But Christ called them back, and 
said, " Why do you flee from that which you have 
desired?" He then called to the fish — "Be again 
what thou wast before ! " and immediately it lay 
there as it had come down from heaven. The 
disciples then prayed Christ that he might eat of 
it first ; but he replied, " I have not lusted for it : 
he that has lusted for it, let him eat of it now." But 
when the disciples refused to eat of it, because they 



228 MIKACLES. 

now saw that their request had been sinful, Christ 
called many aged men — many deaf, sick, blind, and 
lame, and invited them to eat of the fish. There now 
came thirteen hundred, which ate of the fish, and were 
satisfied. But whenever one piece was cut off from 
the fish another grew again in its place ; so that it still 
lay there entire as if no one had touched it. The guests 
were not only satisfied, but even healed of all their 
diseases. The aged became young, the blind saw, the 
deaf heard, the dumb spoke, and the lame regained 
their vigorous limbs. When the Apostles saw this, they 
regretted that they had not eaten ; and whoever beheld 
the men that had been cured and invigorated thereby, 
regretted in like manner not to have shared in the 
repast. When, therefore, at the prayer of Christ, 
a similar table descended again from heaven, the 
whole people, rich and poor, young and old, sick 
and whole, came to be refreshed by these heavenly 
viands. This lasted during forty days. At the 
dawn of day the table, borne on the clouds, descended 
in the face of the sons of Israel ; and before sunset 
it gradually rose up again, until it vanished behind 
the clouds. But as, notwithstanding this, many still 
doubted whether it really came from heaven, Christ 
prayed no longer for its return, and threatened the 
unbelievers with the punishment of the Lord. Never- 
theless in the hearts of the Apostles every doubt 
respecting the mission of their Lord was removed, 
and they travelled partly in his company, partly 



LAST HOURS. 229 

alone, through the whole of Palestine, preaching the 
faith in Allah and his prophet Christ ; and, according 
to the new revelation, permitting the eating of many 
things which had been prohibited to the sons of 
Israel. But when he would have sent them to teach 
his gospel even in distant countries, they excused 
themselves with their ignorance of foreign tongues. 
Christ complained of their disobedience before the 
Lord ; and behold, on the following day his disciples 
had forgotten their own language, and every one 
knew only the language of the people unto which 
Christ desired to send him, so that they had no longer 
any reason to disobey his commands. 

But while the true faith found many followers 
abroad, the hatred of the sons of Israel, but especially 
of the priests and the heads of the people, towards 
Christ, daily waxed in rancour until at last, when he 
had attained the age of thirty-and-three years, they 
sought to take his life; but Allah overthrew their plans, 
and raised him to heaven unto himself, while another 
man, whom Allah had caused to have a perfect resem- 
blance to him, was put to death in his stead. 

The further particulars of the last moments of 
this prophet are variously narrated by the learned. 
But most of them run as follows : — On the evenino- 
before the passover feast, the Jews took Christ captive, 
together with his Apostles, and shut them up in a 
house, with the intention of putting Christ publicly 
to death on the following morning. But in the night 



230 LAST HOURS. 

Allah revealed to him, " Thou shalt receive death 
from me, but immediately afterwards be raised up to 
heaven, and be delivered from the power of the un- 
believers." Christ gave up his spirit, and remained 
dead for the space of three hours. In the fourth 
hour the Angel Gabriel appeared, and raised him un- 
perceived by any through a window into heaven. But 
an unbelieving Jew, who had stolen into the house 
to watch Christ that he might by no means escape, 
became so like him that even the Apostles them- 
selves took him to be their prophet. He it was 
who, as soon as the day dawned, was chained by 
the Jews and led through the streets of Jerusalem ; 
every body crying to him, " Hast thou not revived 
the dead ! Why shouldest thou not be able to break 
thy fetters ?" Many pricked him with rods of thorn, 
others spit in his face, until he at last arrived at 
the place of execution, where he was crucified, for 
no one would believe that he was not the Christ. 

But when Mary had well-nigh succumbed from 
grief at the shameful death of her supposed son, Christ 
appeared to her from heaven, and said, " Mourn 
not for me, for Allah has taken me to himself, and 
we shall be re-united in the day of the resurrection. 
Comfort my disciples, and tell them that it is well with 
me in heaven, and that they shall obtain a place 
beside me, if they continue steadfast in the faith. 
Hereafter, at the approach of the last day, I shall 
be sent again upon the earth, when I shall slay 



LAST HOURS. 231 

the false prophet Dadjal and the wild boar, (both 
of which cause similar distress in the earth), and 
such a state of peace and unity shall ensue that 
the lamb and the hyena shall feed like brothers 
beside each other, i" shall then burn the Gospel, 
which has been falsified by ungodly priests, and the 
crosses which they have worshipped as Gods, and sub- 
ject the whole earth to the doctrines of Mohamecl, 
who shall be sent in later times." When Christ had 
thus spoken, he was once more lifted on a cloud to 
heaven. But Mary lived yet six years in the faith of 
Allah, and of Christ her son, and of the prophet 
Mohamed, whom both Christ as well as Moses before 
him had proclaimed. 

The peace of Allah be upon them all ! 



THE END. 



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